And from Holly. “Are you okay, Artemis? Do you need to take a break?”

Artemis almost laughed. Take a break during a presentation? If I did that, I might as well go and stand beside someone wearing an i’m with crazy T-shirt.

“No. I’m fine. This is a big project, the biggest. I want to be sure that my presentation is perfect.”

Foaly leaned forward until his already unsteady chair teetered dangerously. “You don’t look fine, Mud Boy. You look. .” The centaur sucked his bottom lip, searching for the right word. “Beaten. Artemis, you look beaten.”

Which was the best thing he could have possibly said.

Artemis drew himself up. “I think, Foaly, that perhaps you do not read human expressions well. Perhaps our faces are too short. I am not beaten by any manner or means. I am considering my every word.”

“Maybe you should consider a little faster,” advised Holly gently. “We are quite exposed here.”

Artemis closed his eyes, collecting himself.

Vinyáya drummed the table with her fingers. “No more delays, human. I am beginning to suspect that you have involved us in one of your notorious plans.”

“No. This is a genuine proposal. Please, hear me out.”

“I’m trying to. I want to. I came a long way for that exact purpose, but all you do is show off with your suitcase.”

Artemis raised his hands to shoulder level, the movement activating his V-gloves, and tapped the glacier.

“What we need to do is cover a significant area of the world’s glaciers with a reflective coating to slow down the melt. The coating would have to be thicker around the edges, where the ice is thawing more rapidly. Also it would be nice if we could plug the larger sinkholes.”

“A lot of things would be nice in a perfect world,” said Foaly, once again making smithereens of his promise to keep quiet. “Don’t you think your people would get a tad upset if little creatures popped out of the ground in spaceships and started carpeting Santa’s grotto with reflective foil?”