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zooming in on the men. “No screaming or wetting themselves.”
    “A little drop of relaxant in the dart.” Foaly chuckled. “Well, I say a little drop. Enough to have a troll missing his mommy.”
    “Trolls occasionally eat their mothers,” commented Holly.
    “Exactly.”
    Foaly waited until the men had dropped to within ten feet of the ocean’s surface, then remote-detonated the tiny charge in each dart. Four small pops were followed by four loud splashes. The men were in the water no more than a few seconds before the coast guard reached them.
    “Okay,” said the centaur, obviously relieved. “Potential disaster averted, and our good deed done for the day. Kick up your boots and head back for the shuttle station. I have no doubt that Commander Kelp will want a detailed report.”
    “Just a second, I have mail.”
    “Mail! Mail! Do you really think this is the time? Your power levels are down, and the rear panels of your suit have taken a severe pasting. You need to get out of there before your shield fails altogether.”
    “I have to read this one, Foaly. It’s important.”
    The mail icon flashing in Holly’s visor was tagged with Artemis’s signature. Artemis and Holly color-coded their mail icons. Green was social, blue was business, and red was urgent. The icon in Holly’s visor pulsed a bright red. She blinked at the icon, opening the short message.
    Mother dying , it read. Please come at once. Bring N o 1.
    Holly felt a cold dread in her stomach, and the world seemed to lurch before her eyes.
    Mother dying. Bring N o 1.
    The situation must be desperate if Artemis was asking her to bring the powerful demon warlock.
    She flashed back to the day, eighteen years ago, when her own mother had passed away. Almost two decades now, and the loss was still as painful as a raw wound. A thought struck her.
    It’s not eighteen years. It’s twenty-one. I’ve been away for three.
    Coral Short had been a doctor with LEPmarine, who patrolled the Atlantic, cleaning up after humans, protecting endangered species. She had been mortally injured when a particularly rancid-looking tanker they were shadowing accidentally doused their submarine with radioactive waste. Dirty radiation is poison to fairies, and it had taken her mother a week to die.
    “I will make them pay,” Holly had vowed, crying at her mother’s bedside in Haven Clinic. “I will hunt down every last one of those Mud Men.”
    “No,” her mother had said with surprising force. “I spent my career saving creatures. You must do the same. Destruction cannot be my legacy.”
    It was one of the last things she would ever say. Three days later, Holly stood stone-faced at her mother’s recycling ceremony, her green dress uniform buttoned to the chin, the omnitool that her mother had given her as a graduation present in its holster on her belt.
    Saving creatures. So Holly applied to Recon.
    And now Artemis’s mother was dying. Holly realized that she didn’t think of Artemis as a human anymore, just as a friend.
    “I need to go to Ireland,” she said.
    Foaly did not bother to argue, as he had sneaked a peek at this urgent mail on Holly’s screen.
    “Go. I can cover for you here for a few hours. I could say you’re completing the Ritual. As it happens, there’s a full moon tonight and we still have a few magical sites near Dublin. I’ll send a message to Section Eight. Maybe Qwan will let N o 1 out of the magi-lab for a few hours.”
    “Thanks, old friend.”
    “You’re welcome. Now go. I’m going to get out of your head for a while and monitor the chatter here. Maybe I can plant a few ideas in the human media. I like the idea of an underground natural gas pocket. It’s almost the truth.”
    Almost the truth.
    Holly couldn’t help applying the phrase to Artemis’s mail. So often the Irish boy manipulated people by telling them almost the truth .
    She chided herself silently. Surely not. Even Artemis Fowl would not lie about something this