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PROLOGUE

Fowl Manor

Barely an hour north of Dublin’s fair city lies the Fowl estate, where the boundaries have changed little in the past five hundred years

The manor house is not visible from the raates are reinforced steel with cameras perched upon their pillars Were you allowed to pass through these discreetly electrified portals, you would find yourself on a pea-gravel avenue, h as once a ed to evolve to a wild garden

The trees grow dense as you approach the led with ns of cultivation are a driveway free of weeds and the glowing laly without tether or cable

Fowl Manor has been the site of rand adventures over the centuries In recent years the adventures have had h most of the Fowl family have been kept in the dark about this fact They have no idea that the main lobby was completely destroyed when the fairy folk sent a troll to do battle with Artemis, the family’s eldest son and a criminal mastermind He elve years old at the tial There are no fairy special forces stor the battlements No elfin police officers held captive in the cellar Nor any signs of a centaur fine-tuning his listening devices or running thermal scans Artemis has made peace with the Fairy People, and for their ranks

Though his criminal activities earned Arteht, injured, and even abducted because of his scheht hiht deasted to find that the world had moved on without him, and he was now the older brother to two-year-old twin boys, Beckett and Myles

CHAPTER 1

ESPRESSO AND TREACLE

Arte Beckett and Myles His ht case of the flu, his father ith the doctor in her roo the toddlers And what better entertainsters than some lessons?

He had decided to dress casually in a sky blue silk shirt, light gray woolen pants, and Gucci loafers His black hair ept back fro on a jolly expression, which he had heard appealed to children

“Arte on the Tunisian rug, wearing only a grass-stained sweater, which he had pulled down over his knees

“No, Beckett,” said Arte to look jolly And shouldn’t you be wearing a diaper?”

“Diaper,” snorted Myles, who had potty trained hi a stepladder of encyclopedias to reach the toilet seat

“No diaper,” pouted Beckett, slapping at a still-buzzing fly trapped in his sticky blond curls “Beckett hates diaper”

Artelected to put a diaper on Beckett, and he wondered briefly where that diaper was now

“Very well, Beckett,” continued Artemis “Let’s shelve the diaper issue for now, and move on to today’s lesson”

“Chocolate on shelves,” said Beckett, stretching his fingers high to reach iinary chocolate

“Yes, good There is sometimes chocolate on the shelves”

“And espresso,” added Beckett, who had a strange set of favorite tastes, which included espresso sachets and treacle—in the saed to down several spoons of this concoction before it rested away froht hours

“Can we learn the neords, Arteet back to a’speriments with Professor Primate”

Professor Primate was a stuffed monkey, and Myles’s occasional lab partner The cuddly toy spent lass beaker on the ’sperirammed the monkey’s voice box to respond to Myles’s voice with twelve phrases, including It’s alive! It’s alive! and History will remember this day, Professor Myles

“You can go back to your laboratory soon,” said Artely Myles was cut from the same cloth as hiht today we ht tackle some restaurant terms”

“Sneezes look like wor on topic

Artemis was nearly thrown by this reh snails et about worms”

“Forget worms?” said Beckett, horrified

“Just for the moment,” said Ar

teame, you ood, then I ht take you to see the horses”

Riding was the onlyform of exercise thatArtemis had taken to This was mainly because the horse did most of the work

Beckett pointed to himself “Beckett,” he said proudly, worms already a distant memory

Myles sighed “Simple-toon”

Arte begun he was detere ahead

“Myles, don’t call your brother a simpleton”

“S’okay, Artemis He likes it You’re a simple-toon, aren’t you, Beckett?”

“Beckett sireed the small boy happily

Arteine yourself seated at a café table in Montmartre”

“In Paris,” said Myles, s the cravat that he had borrowed from his father

“Yes, Paris And try as you will, you cannot attract the waiter’s attention What do you do?”

The infants stared at hi his lesson a little high He was relieved, if a little surprised, to see a spark of comprehension in Beckett’s eyes

“Ummtell Butler to jump-jump-jump on his head?”

Myles was iree with simple-toon”

“No!”Artearçon’”

“Itchy what?”

“What? No, Beckett, not itchy” Artehed This was impossible Impossible And he hadn’t even introduced the flash cards yet or his new ht a word or burn through several steel plates, depending on the setting

“Let’s try it together Raise one finger and say ‘Ici, garçon’ All together now”

The little boys did as they were told, eager to please their deranged brother

“Ici, garçon,” they chorused, pudgy fingers raised And then from the corner of his mouth, Myles whispered to his twin, “Artemis simple-toon”

Artemis raised his hands “I surrender You win, no more lessons Why don’t we paint some pictures?”

“Excellent,” said Myles “I shall paint my jar of mold”

Beckett was suspicious “I won’t learn anything?”

“No,” said Arteretting it “You won’t learn a thing”

“Good Beckett happy now See?” The boy pointed to himself once more, specifically to the broad smile on his face

The three brothers were stretched on the floor, up to their elbows in poster paint, when their father entered the roo duties, but otherwise fit and strong,athlete in spite of his bio-hybrid artificial leg The leg used lengthened bone, titanium prosthetics, and inals to move it Occasionally, at the end of the day, he would use a el pouch to ease his stiffness, but otherwise he behaved as if the new leg were his own

Arte