"I know you're awake, so you might as well stop pretending otherwise."

Holly sighed deeply and turned over in her bed. Glancing at the small glowing clock hanging from one of the walls, she saw that she had only managed to sleep for two hours. She grabbed the tiny hand-held computer from the nightstand and held it in front of her face. On its screen, Foaly smiled brightly at her.

"See, I knew you weren't sleeping," he said, cheerful at being correct.

Holly shot him a look of death. With more and more demons trying to get to the surface to heed the call of the moon, Holly had been working overtime and hadn't gotten a day off in ages. Just yesterday a group of female demons had been trying to get to the surface illegally and had caused quite the fuss when Holly and another agent had tried to stop them. Her body was still sore.

"This had better be good," Holly told the centaur. "I haven't slept in two days."

"Sorry, Holly," Foaly apologized, "but this isn't good. This is very, very bad."

Holly sighed once more and swung her legs off the edge of the bed. "I'll be down there in fifteen minutes."

Foaly glanced to his side, where Holly knew he had placed images of whatever the problem was on a large screen. "Better make that ten minutes."

Jinx was having a dream. In it, she was an infant, wrapped in rough blankets that scratched at her skin. She was being held by a fairy with a long white beard that kept tickling at her forehead. She was silent, but next to her another baby held by an elderly female fairy was screaming its lungs out. "If the monstrosity cannot be silenced, then move it from the room," a voice said grimly.

The female carried the screaming baby out of the room, leaving Jinx and the old man standing in a dark, circular area, surrounded by a group of fairies sitting atop high, sturdy chairs. "It has been proposed that the abominations be left to die on the surface…" the fairy sitting in the center said.

"Please," the elderly fairy pleaded. "Enough lives have been lost in this entire affair. If it so pleases the Council, my wife and I will gladly take the babies and…"

"No, no, that will never do," one of the seated fairies interrupted. "We cannot have the abominations running around Haven City. Imagine the riots it would cause in the street."

"The Council has reached a decision," the middle fairy told the old man.

Suddenly Jinx was awoken by the loud clanging of a metal door opening. She opened her eyes quickly, not bothering to let them adjust to the little light that found its way through the dusty windows. She shifted slightly, the heavy chains that bound her to the wall creaking and as she saw two figures walk up to her cell door, she cast her eyes down.

"Prisoner 948653, rise," the thick voice of a prison guard instructed her.

Silently, Jinx rose, her eyes glued to the floor. "You have a visitor," the guard said.

"My name is Holly Short," another person said. Out of the corner of her eye, Jinx could see it was an elf with pretty, auburn hair. "I've come here to speak with you about your brother."

Jinx kept her arms at her side, careful not to move. The last time she had moved without being instructed to, the guard had sent a dollop of hot plasma into her side. She still had the scar. "I don't know where he is," Jinx admitted.

Holly looked her over carefully. Her Gnommish was a bit creaky, as though she were not used to speaking. She wore the prisoner's uniform, but it was near rags, unlike that of the others. Her dark, uncut hair fell like curtains around her face, which was smudged with dirt. Her entire body was lanky and a bit awkward, but Holly supposed that spending so many years in a prison did not aid in one's growth.

"We know that you did not get along with…"

"Doom," Jinx told the elf. She almost smiled at the absurdity of their names, but knew better than to smile in front of the guard.

Holly nodded and continued. "We know that you didn't get along with Doom, but now that he has escaped, we need you to tell us everything you know about him."

The chains were digging into Jinx's wrists. "The guards know plenty, Miss Short."

Holly smiled politely and kept the smile even when she realized that Jinx could not see her face with her eyes cast down. "They did not know that you and your brother have powers, although they suspected it. And we have no idea what you two are capable of." She paused for a response, but Jinx gave none. "You'll have to excuse me if I seem a bit tactless, it's just that a few hours ago, I thought you and your brother were just stories parents told their children to make them behave. You know, made up monsters. I had no idea you were real."

Jinx almost laughed before she stopped herself. "I can't help you, Miss Short. I…" Before she could finish her sentence, the guard's baton came through the bars of the cell and struck her with an electric force in the arm, sending her flying back against the stone wall. She clasped a hand on the wound, which was already starting to bleed. "I can't help her because Doom and I don't have the same powers!" she shouted at the guard, backing up into a corner of the cell and all the while keeping her eyes on the floor. "I don't know the extent of his!"

Very slowly, tiny blue sparkles of magic moved up her arm, toward the wound. Holly watched, amazed, before asking, "How is it that you've got magic when you haven't been allowed to bury an acorn?"

"My magic isn't very strong," Jinx told her. "I can't heal without leaving a scar. I don't know how I have any at all."

Holly straightened herself, attempting to resume a degree of professionalism. "If you will come back to Section Eight with me, and tell us everything you know of your brother's and your own power, and help us in any way my commander may see fit, we are willing to grant you your freedom."

"Freedom?" Jinx looked up for the first time and Holly could see her eyes. They were large and golden, almost glowing and unlike anything Holly had ever seen before.

It took Holly a moment to recover. It felt as though her whole body was being squeezed gently. "Uh…y-yes, freedom," she stuttered. "It would be on a small island in the Pacific Ocean, where you would not come into contact with Mud Men, and a fairy will be up once a month to make sure you are doing well."

Jinx lowered her eyes again and Holly's body relaxed. "Alright," she said softly. Her Gnommish was getting better. "I'll help you."

The screen before Foaly displayed Holly and Jinx walking swiftly down the corridor, the latter wearing mirrored, expensive looking sunglasses like the ones Mud Men wore. He shut off the screen, silently prayed that his soul would not be sucked out through his eyes by the abomination, and opened the door just as the two females reached him.

"You must be Jinx!" he said, as free of paranoia as he could muster and sticking out his hand. Jinx looked at Holly, who nodded, before she shook his hand. "Please, have a seat." The centaur waved at a row of dark, soft seats set against one wall while closing the door behind Holly. She and Jinx sat down, across from the screen, and watched as Foaly flicked a switch near the wall so that the image of Jinx's face appeared on the screen. "We just need to record what you're going to tell us," he explained. "We need you to tell us everything about you and your brother. Start from the beginning."

Jinx nodded and straightened herself. She was out of her prisoner's uniform and in clean, soft clothing. Holly had healed her arm so that there was no scar, and she had cleaned up to reveal caramel colored skin and a vaguely pretty, round face. "My name is Jinx," she started, watching her face in the screen. "My twin brother's name is Doom. We were named by the Council upon our imprisonment, two months after our births. Our mother was Acacia, an elf of Haven City and our father was a Mud Man of whom we know nothing. Despite the laws against it, our parents fell in love and when Acacia became pregnant, she hid the fact, since all births of Mud Men and fairy have always been stillborn and deformed. However, twins were born, and so the powerful magic of the People was split between us instead of breaking one fragile, human body. Our mother died during childbirth and out father was killed in a fairy riot. After the Council imprisoned us, our fairy grandparents would visit us each week, up until their respective deaths two and three years ago." She paused a moment. She had not shown an ounce of emotion until she mentioned her grandparents, when her breathing seemed to come at labored efforts. She straightened herself and continued "They did not know of our powers. They were only there to bring us as much food as they could sneak in, and news clippings. Doom has destructive powers. He can burn through objects, I know, and kill small insects upon contact, and I don't know what else. I am a creator. I can fix what he messes up."

"How?" Holly asked, curious.

"I can bring back the things he kills, if they haven't been dead too long. I can restore the things he's destroyed. I can make things grow and heal and move. But my powers are weak since I've been in a prison cell all my life."

Foaly stared at her a moment before taking a deep breath and saying, "What about your eyes?"

Jinx looked up at him. "I don't know. Doom's are black and I've heard a guard say that they're painful to look at, but they don't hurt me. Our eyes are what made them think we had powers to begin with."

Foaly switched the camera off and Jinx's face disappeared from the screen. "We never had a seeker-sleeper inserted in your brother's arm because we assumed that as half-humans, you had no powers. Can you think of anywhere he might go?"

Jinx was silent a moment before she answered. "I can think of one place," she admitted slowly.

Several miles above them, Artemis Fowl was trying unsuccessfully to get his siblings to eat their lunch.