Prologue

If I had my time again
I would do it all the same
They say, but that's insane
Wouldn't you want to make a couple of changes? -Groundhog Day

Artemis Fowl's feet were cold.

Not to say that this was a novel feeling—after all, Fowl Manor, the place he called home, was built with fending off invasions in mind, not cold drafts, and he had learned long ago that the rather mundane solution of wearing socks to bed was the best way to combat the problem. Had he been at Fowl Manor, he would have noted the problem, pulled a pair of heated socks out of his mahogany dresser, and crawled back under his covers.

No, he was at the manor, his brain noted dimly, as a pair of strong hands gently grabbed his side to help him up. He shouldn't be-he was supposed to be in Haven-his clone body had spent the last week fighting off an illness not seen in the human world for generations, and a few medical warlocks were spending the week trying to figure out a solution while he rested in a specially extended bed. The last thing he remembered was falling asleep in a specialized bed constructed in collaboration with Foaly that read and stored medical information of the person who slept in it.

The fog started lifting from around his brain as he took in his surroundings. Get the facts, he mentally reminded himself. Get the facts, then react. He was barefoot, wearing pajamas he hadn't worn in eons-he'd outgrown them after turning thirteen- in the hallway that lead to his mother's old bedroom. The world seemed a tad bigger, slightly off, and it was Butler that was preventing him from falling.

"Master Artemis? Are you alright?"

Just as he was starting to find his bearings, he got a clear look at Butler, and his legs nearly gave out beneath him. It was Butler, yes, but with the years shaved off. The stress of the past decade, of nearly dying, of loosing Artemis for three years, of watching the Atlantis Complex devour his young charge's mind, to loosing Artemis again, to all the death-defying adventures they'd had-magical and mundane-barely any of it was present. Nearly a decade was missing from his face.

Like always, his brain was faster than his body, and he had a strong feeling about what his reflection in the mirror would look like. He turned a few degrees, to look in the reflective surface of a nearby vase and saw a younger version of himself.

Maybe it was a sign that he was too used to the presence of magic in his life, but the feeling that began crawling up his throat wasn't panic or disbelief, but light confusion. He touched Butler's hand, to indicate that he was fine and took a few deep breaths. "I seem to have become a tad dizzy for a few seconds." He straightened and changed tactics. "This may seem like an off query, but in all your travels, did you ever work with someone named Captain Short?"

Butler's mouth twitched, as it always did when he mentally flipped though his list of military contacts. "I worked against a Commander Short in the past. Is that who you were referring to?"

Artemis shook his head. "No, thank you Butler. I'll be in my study for a while."

Butler tilted his head to indicate a room further down the dark hall. "What about your mother?"

His mother. How could he have forgotten? "It may be best to give her a bit of privacy for a bit."

A crashing sound came from the closed bedroom. Butler nodded, looked upon his young charge with the greatest amount of sympathy permitted by the young heir, then walked off to ask Juliet if she could check in on Mrs. Fowl.

Shakily, Artemis stumbled into his room. He had somehow time traveled, that much was obvious. But how? The mental shock of the timestream should have woken him up if he had been tossed in, and based on past experiences, it wasn't only a mental transfer, there should have been two of him. Could he be delirious? Maybe, but Butler had never informed him about the existence of a Commander Short-how would delusions give him new information?

Unfortunately, when magic was a regular part of one's life, the whole rule about Occam's Razor tended to pack its bags and whistle right out the front door.

Tentatively, he began to explore his room, looking for anything that might indicate discrepancies, anything to suggest that this was anything other than time travel. The fresco on the celling, completed for years, was missing, leaving a white, lonely space on the ceiling. A wall was all that was left of his yet-to-be-constructed special projects room, and his laptop was an ancient Mac, massive, and barely able to play video.

His bookshelf was covered in volumes he hadn't thought of in ages-science texts that had since been disproven, psychology books since updated, fiction long stolen by his brothers. He pulled out Goblet of Fire, as of, apparently right now, the latest Harry Potter book. It had been squished next to Redwall and Till We Have Faces, some of the few fictional titles that he allowed to stay on his shelf after his father's disappearance.

He walked over and felt the edges of the dark blue blanket on the edges of his bed. This particular blanket ad been retired for years now, following a misunderstanding with Beckett that had ended with the blanket irreparably damaged. A few days later, Beckett had been frogmarched into his room by Angeline Fowl, brandishing an obnoxious neon patchwork quilt that he had acquired in Dublin. Before he could comment on the monstrosity, his mother had given him her patented glare that guaranteed pain if he acted anything other than excited.

He had taken the blanket and pretended to examine it closely. "Thank you very much Beckett. What's...ahh...this has a lot of sequins on in."

Beckett had nodded proudly. "It's to attract the fairies. Daddy says that fairies love love love gold, and gold is shiny, and sequins are shiny, and I bet this one is going to get all the fairies in your room. And then you can ask them to fly!"

Artemis raised a single eyebrow. "I have heard the rumor that fairies tend to be rather fond of gold."

Holly has laughed for days when she flew to Fowl Manor and saw the quilt arranged into Artemis's customary nest of blankets that formed around him whenever he pulled an all-nighter researching.

As much as he despised the color choices made by the quilter, the navy blue throw blanket, more than anything tonight, filled him with an overwhelming sense of loss. Myles and Beckett didn't exist. They might never again.

Artemis Fowl allowed himself a single dry sob. Then, with the kind of control that had allowed him to live to see seventeen, he sat down in his office chair and mentally began forming a to-do list. First, he needed to know if this was a separate timeline, or if he was truly disrupting his own timeline. He needed to know dates and start compiling known information. He needed to find his father, cure his mother, and find out if anyone else came back with him.

He needed to find Holly.