Foaly stamped a hoof, which was an irritated tic of his and the reason he never won at cards. “Nice to see you too, Mud Boy.”

“How old?”

“I don’t know. Maybe four years.”

“Four. There, you see. What sort of number is that?”

Foaly stuck out his bottom lip. “What sort of number? There are types now, Artemis? That amplifier is good for another hundred years. Maybe it could do with a little tuning, but that’s all.”

Holly stood and walked lightly to the head of the table.

“Do you two have to start with the sparring right away? Isn’t that getting a little clichéd after all these years? You’re like a couple of mutts marking territory.” She laid two slim fingers on Artemis’s forearm. “Lay off him, Artemis. You know how sensitive centaurs are.”

Artemis could not meet her eyes. Inside his left snow boot, he counted off twenty toe-taps.

“Very well. Let’s change the subject.”

“Please do,” said the third fairy in the room. “We’ve come across from Russia for this, Fowl. So if the subject could be changed to what we came here to discuss. .”

Commander Raine Vinyáya was obviously not happy being so far from her beloved Police Plaza. She had assumed command of LEPgeneral some years previously and prided herself on keeping a finger in every ongoing mission. “I have operations to get back to, Artemis. The pixies are rioting, calling for Opal Koboi’s release from prison, and the swear toad epidemic has flared up again. Please do us the courtesy of getting on with it.”

Artemis nodded. Vinyáya was being openly antagonistic, and that was an emotion that could be trusted, unless of course it was a bluff and the commander was a secret fan of his, unless it was a double bluff and she really did feel antagonistic.

That sounds insane, Artemis realized. Even to me.

Though she was barely forty inches tall, Commander Vinyáya was a formidable presence and someone that Artemis never intended to underestimate.