Disclaimer: Do not own.
When Ceres Fowler III was twelve years old she stood trial before the White Council.
She wasn't as surprised as she should have been.
While the London Fowler branch had split from the main Dublin Fowl family several generations ago, they kept in close if clandestine contact. In fact, the split had been a security measure. The Fowlers were meant to provide their second born as the new Fowl Master if ever the main line went extinct, legitimately or not.
The Fowls kept Dublin and most of the gold, as well as the duty of hoarding more as emphasised by the motto 'aurum potestas est'. The Fowlers took most of the family library together with the new motto 'lacuna valeo', moved to London and pretended they had nothing to do with those shady Fowls.
Today the Fowlers surreptitiously owned every form of communication media in the Commonwealth as well as most of the lucrative entertainment business. Meanwhile the criminally rich Fowl's dubious endeavours indirectly financed the modestly wealthy (in the eyes of the tax-collectors) Fowler's legitimate businesses, while the Fowlers provided invisible protection, invaluable information, and a laundered tithe to the collective coffers.
And the more mystical adventures of Artemis II had circulated through the family grapevine loud and clear, in codes even LEPrecon could not break.
She wasn't as surprised as she should have been, but she was still surprised. Cousin Artemis had said nothing about wizards.
But Ceres was a Fowl, even if her Butler was a Valet, and even if she wasn't a genius like Cousins Artemis and Myles a Fowl was still smarter than a collection of Wizengamot wannabes with delusions of justice. (Although she might have gulped a little when the Merlin was introduced).
Ceres still carried the day when she argued in fluent Latin that the death of the kidnapper had been a complete accident. She wasn't surprised the Valet line had some sort of hellhound in the Butler ancestry, but it was Ceres who had killed the attacker, and 'truly, honourable Council, those bricks may have been loosened by the kinetic force that my magic manifested, but surely you will not hold me accountable for gravity'. Ceres did not mention that her magic was not kinetic but telekinetic, and that she had in fact ensured the bricks fell the guy a couple of times. Pot-ay-to, pot-ah-to.
As she and her rather unhappy bodyguard were escorted through a sub-dimension back to Chicago, she wondered whether to avoid Cousin Artemis II in the future. While her parents had come 'on holiday' to deliver some sensitive information by hand, she was aware that he had been here to meet with 'Gentleman' Marcone, who simply had to know about this people in his territory.
Weirdness like his only happened around Artemis.
A few days later, leaning back after finishing the last of some hastily gathered books, she was singing a different tune entirely.
'Valet, I think it's time to drag the magi into the 21st Century. Fowl style.'
