The Time Paradox (Artemis Fowl 6)

No1 answered for the lemur. “He likes it fine. Especially now that no one will be sticking any needles in his head.”

Artemis nodded. “You duplicated the fluid. I thought that might be an option. Where is Dr. Schalke?”

“He collapsed once Opal departed. Butler put him in a guest room.”

“And Artemis Junior?”

“Technically, you are Artemis Junior,” replied No1. “But I know what you are trying to ask me. Your younger self has been transported back to his own time. I sent a Retrieval captain and stayed here as a marker. I thought you would want him out of the way as soon as possible, what with your father and the twins on their way home.”

Artemis tickled Jayjay under the chin. “It might have proved awkward.”

Holly was troubled. “I know we promised not to wipe him, but I’m not particularly thrilled that there’s a little Fowl running around with fairy knowledge in his devious skull.”

Artemis raised an eyebrow. “Devious skull? Charming.”

“Hey, if the flap fits . . .”

No1 was a little pale. With a flex of his tail, he lifted his squat rump from the step. “About this no mind-wiping promise. The thing is, nobody told me.”

Holly stared at him. “So you wiped him?”

No1 nodded. “And Schalke. I also left a residual spell in young Artemis’s eyeballs so Butler will get it too. Nothing fancy, just a blanket memory loss. Their brains will fill in the gaps, invent believable memories.”

Holly shuddered. “You left a spell in his eyeballs? That is revolting.”

“Revolting but ingenious,” said Artemis.

Holly was surprised. “You don’t seem too indignant. I was expecting a speech. Rolling eyes, flapping arms, the whole Fowl thing.”

Artemis shrugged. “I knew it would happen. I didn’t remember anything, so I must have been wiped, therefore we must have won.”

“You always knew.”

“I didn’t know what the cost would be.”

No1 sighed. “So I’m off the hook, as you humans say?”

“Absolutely,” said Holly, clapping him on the shoulder. “I feel a lot better now.”

“On the positive side, I bolstered your atomic structure. Your atoms were a bit rattled by the time stream. I’m amazed you are still in one piece. I can only imagine how hard you were forced to concentrate.”

“Well, you had bolstered my atoms, and I have to beg one more favor,” said Artemis. “I need you to send a note back in time.”

“I’ve been ordered not to open the time stream again, but maybe we can squeeze back one more thing,” said No1.

Artemis nodded. “That’s what I thought.”

“When and where?”

“Holly knows. You can do it from Tara.”

“How do you spell stupendous?” said Holly, smiling.

Artemis stepped back and craned his neck to peer upward at the front window of his parents’ room. Jayjay mimicked the action, climbing onto Artemis’s shoulders and tilting his tiny head back.

“I’m afraid to go up, for some reason.”

He noticed himself wringing his fingers, and stuffed both hands in his jacket pockets.

“What she must have been through, all because of my meddling. What she must have . . .”

“Don’t forget us,” interjected No1. “We were submerged in animal fat. You have no idea how gross that is. Eyeball spells are the epitome of good taste compared to animal fat.”

“I was turned into an adolescent,” said Holly, winking at Artemis. “Now, that was gross.”

Artemis’s smile was forced. “Strangely, all this guilt-tripping is not making me feel any better. The DNA cannons aren’t helping either.”

Holly gestured at the LEP squad to stand down, then tilted her head slightly as a message came through.

“There’s a chopper coming in. Your father. We’ve got to fly.”

No1 wagged a finger. “And that’s not just a figure of speech. We actually have to fly. I know humans use that expression even when they don’t intend to actually fly, so just to avoid confusion . . .”

“I get it, No1,” said Artemis softly.

Holly raised her forearm, and Jayjay jumped onto it. “He will be safer with us.”

“I know.”

He turned to Holly, meeting her gaze. Blue and hazel eyes.

She gazed back for a second, then activated her wings, rising a foot from the surface.

“In another time,” she said, and kissed him on the cheek.

He was at the front door before Holly called to him.

“You know something, Fowl? You did a good thing here. For its own sake. Not one penny of profit.”

Artemis grimaced. “I know. I’m appalled.”

He looked down at his feet, composing a pithy remark, but when he looked up again, the avenue was empty.

“Good-bye, my friends,” he said. “Take care of Jayjay.”

Artemis could hear helicopter rotors in the distance by the time he reached his mother’s bedroom. He would have some explaining to do, but he had a feeling that Artemis Senior would not press him for details once he saw Angeline in good health.

Artemis flexed his fingers, summoning his courage, then pushed through into the bedchamber. The bed was empty; his mother was sitting at her dresser, despairing at the state of her hair.

“Oh dear, Arty,”she said in mock horror on spotting her son in the mirror. “Look at me. I need a team of hairdressers flown in immediately from London.”

“You look fine, Mother . . . Mom. Wonderful.”

Angeline ran a pearl-handled brush through her long hair, the luster returning with each stroke. “Considering what I have been through.”

“Yes. You were ill. But you are better now.”

Angeline turned on her dresser stool, reaching out her arms. “Come here, my hero. Hug your mother.”

Artemis was happy to do as he was told.

A thought struck him. Hero. Why had she called him a hero?

Generally victims of the mesmer remembered nothing of their ordeal. But Butler had remembered what Opal did to him, he had even described the experience to Artemis. Schalke had been wiped. But what of Mother?

Angeline held him tightly. “You have done so much, Arty. Risked everything.”

The rotors were loud now, rattling the windows. His father was home.

“I didn’t do so much, Mom. What any son would do.”

Angeline’s hand cradled his head. He could feel her tears on his cheek. “I know everything, Arty. Everything. That creature left me her memories. I tried to fight her, but she was too strong.”

“What creature, Mother? It was the fever. You had a hallucination, that’s all.”

Angeline held him at arms’ length. “I was in the diseased hell of that pixie’s brain, Artemis. Don’t you dare lie to me and say that I wasn’t. I saw your friends almost die to help you. I saw Butler’s heart stop. I saw you save us all. Look me in the eye and tell me these things did not happen.”

Artemis found it difficult to meet his mother’s stare, and when he did it was impossible to lie.

“They happened. All of them. And more.”

Angeline frowned.“You have a hazel eye. Why did I not notice that?”

“I put a spell on you,” said Artemis miserably.

“And on your father?”

“Him too.”

Below, the front door crashed open. His father’s footsteps raced across the lobby, then onto the stairway.

“You saved me, Artemis,” said his mother hurriedly. “But I have a feeling that all your spell-casting in some way put us in this situation. So I want to know everything. Everything. Do you understand?”

Artemis nodded. He couldn’t see how to escape this. He was in a dead end, and the only way out was complete honesty.

“Now we will give your father and the twins time to hug me and kiss me, then you and I are going to have a talk. It will be our secret. Understood?”

“Understood.”

Artemis sat on the bed. He felt six years old again, when he had been caught hacking the school computers to make the test questions a little more challenging.