I love Butler. That's really all there is to say. Except, sadly, no Of Weeping, there just didn't end up being very much water!

Chapter Eleven: Iphigeneia On The Rocks

Artemis and Butler wait for Mulch just outside the fence, their rental car parked in the shadows. Following Mulch via iris cam feed and headphones, they watch him breach the museum floor, using a clever piece of dwarfish technology to pop up the floor tiles from underneath. They watch as he swaps the sheep and returns to the ground.

'Now, let's just hope the thought of your 'bucket of gold' keeps him from running away with it,' Butler mutters.

Artemis shrugs, 'Where would he go if he ran with it? Clearly stolen goods, both above and below ground.'

'Like that's ever stopped anyone from investing before.'

'Very true. However, he'd still have me coming after him.'

Butler nods to the truth of that. He licks his lips, working up the courage to ask, 'Do you love her, Artemis?'

'What does it look like to you?' Artemis fiddles with the equipment, not meeting Butler's eye.

'It looks to me like you do, and always have. It also looks to me like this could also be some elaborate scheme to yank the Council's chain. Or maybe a bit of both.'

Artemis nods, 'Well, you'll just have to wait and see then, won't you?'

'For us, ten years is a very long time to love someone in absentia,' Butler comments, seemingly non sequitarily.

'Indeed,' Artemis continues to avoid his eyes, 'a little pathetic one could say.'

'Oh, I don't know,' muses Butler, peering through the windshield with night vision goggles to give Artemis a break, 'seems to me that it's actually quite sweet. Noble, even. What strikes me as pathetic is if someone were to string along countless vertically challenged redheads and then create a super computer that could bring on World War III because simply phoning their hypothetical lover would be too terrifying.'

'Yes, well, I suppose some people simply aren't quite as brave as you are, Butler,' Artemis replies testily.

'Indubitably. But what I was getting at is that, were someone to string along these hypothetical redheads, it would be a pretty good indicator that they were still in love with the original model, as it were. And from that, it could be inferred that the reason certain people are sitting in a rental car at an ungodly hours is because someone still loves a woman who has, and continues to, risk everything for him. And if, hypothetically speaking of course, that were the case, I'd just like to point out that I'm very happy to be here, despite the fact that my legs are absolutely killing me.' Butler strokes his clean-shaven chin, 'Of course, I could be wrong. It has happened before.'

Silence. Artemis swallows, speaking softly, the hidden note in his voice not victorious but pleading, 'I told you it was safe, letting her come to me. I told you I knew her.'

Butler nods, 'Yes, and you were right. But I've since learnt from my mistakes. I am an old man now, after all, and that is all old men are good for it seems.'

'Don't be ridiculous,' says Artemis.

Butler puts away the goggles. 'At least,' he continues quietly, 'this way now I know someone will be around to look after you when I am gone.'

'Don't,' says Artemis. Butler reaches out and smoothes down his charge's hair, something he hasn't done since before Artemis learned to walk.

'Don't worry,' says Butler, settling back into the passenger seat, 'I'm not going anywhere until I get to play the jolly uncle, or something.'

'Well, you'll be waiting around goodness knows how long then, Juliet doesn't seem to be inclined towards the, ah, male option, when it comes to relationships.'

'I meant yours.'

'Oh.' Artemis blinks, then gives a delicate sort of snort, 'For Heaven's sake, I'm stealing a sheep, not proposing.'

Butler gives him a look that speaks volumes on the direct line one can draw between stolen sheep and parenthood.

'Besides which, you haven't the faintest idea how to be jolly,' Artemis sniffs.

Butler smiles out the window.

Mulch is as good as his word, or at least faithful to Artemis' promised gold. A few minutes later, a squat, dark figure comes sliding through the wrought iron fence, scuttling towards the car.

'Ta da!' Mulch hops into the back seat, brushing off the ivy that had wound itself into his hair. 'Who's a clever dwarf or what! And can we eat now? Frond, I am star-ving.'

'Stop the presses,' mutters Artemis, continuing in a louder tone, 'Let's see it then, Mulch.'

The dwarf passes forward a bundle, '100% faery gold, dwarfish workmanship too, if I'm not very much mistaken. Worth quite a pretty penny.'

'And quite a long stint in jail,' returns Artemis, inspecting the sheep.

'You always were such a cynical boy.'

'We have one last request,' the Councilmen smirk just a little.

Artemis' jaw tightens involuntarily, 'Really?'

'Yes, and then you will have your security and she her amnesty.'

'And what would this last request be?'

'The Persephone Project. We want it. The notes, everything, all the knowledge you stole from us.'

'The Persephone isn't only faery technology, it is at least half my own creation. I have absolutely no intention of handing over my notes to you.' Expected though it was, he has no intention of simply complying with their request.

'Well then, I'm afraid our deal has come to an end, Master Fowl. I suppose, however, there is some consolation in the fact that Captain Short can at least live with you in her exile. Though, you humans have such terribly brief lives. I wonder who will take her in when you are dead?'

'Or, you can keep your end of the bargain, and perhaps I won't release the Persephone Project for sale quite so soon. I was considering patenting it for hobby purposes only, but maybe now I'll call several of the interested military parties. Do you think that is good idea, councillor? After all, just think of the money they would be willing to offer.' Artemis is furious, though no one but Butler can tell.

'She would die with the rest of her people, were they to discover us!'

'Oh, now you are her people, once again. How interesting,' Artemis bares his incisors while somehow still managing to be icily sophisticated. 'But, as I'm sure you know, we humans are so terribly fickle. And it's come to my attention that perhaps she simply isn't worth all this hassle. I always was such a cold, cruel child.'

'You're a monster!'

'Says Agamemnon to Artemis,' he laughs. 'How wonderfully ironic. You sacrificed her, not me. I am simply accepting the tribute.'

The councillor opens his mouth to respond but Trouble's voice breaks in as he edges his way to the foreground. 'Give me a few minutes to talk to him,' Trouble motions off screen towards, presumably, the exit, 'he'll see reason. Just a few minutes, alright?'

The councillors disappear, muttering, and Artemis can hear a door shutting in the background.

Trouble runs a hand through his crew-cut. 'Fowl, you can't be serious. And just when you seemed like the good guy for once. Please, I know there's no love lost between you and the rest of us, but for her sake. And even Foaly's and that dwarf's, whatever his name is. Give it up. Or at least, give up the parts that are ours. Fudge it a little, they'll never know. Just make it safe for us.'

'Some stories tell it that the Goddess Artemis rescued Iphigeneia just before her sacrifice, replacing her with a goat,' Artemis replies cryptically.

'What?'

'It's always been safe,' Artemis sighs, giving up his allegory. 'I made it with faery technology and it's decidedly more advanced than anything that has come before, including the C Cube, but the whole point of it was to antagonise the council into sending Holly to me. I simply misjudged their... exuberance. But, after all, tempting though it was, exposing your People to mine would hardly have furthered my suit with Holly.'

Trouble's jaw drops, 'You mean –this whole time- just for her?'

Artemis shrugs, faintly miffed. 'Any cretin can scheme his way into gold. I have yet to meet anyone else who can scheme his way into Captain Short's good graces.'

'Right,' Trouble snorts, 'her good graces. Uh huh. But, why didn't you say something?'

Another shrugs, ' I have my vanity, just as they do. Besides which, I would like to point out, they didn't actually ask before sending someone to kill me. And, lately, I've been thinking it might be good idea to have some sort of leverage.'

'Frond!' Trouble laughs incredulously. 'Well then, just give them the stupid thing with your bits taken out and fake some notes and next year release it under a different name. By then they'll know better.' Still laughing, 'Wait though... does this mean you actually are a good person?'

'Don't get carried away,' Artemis replies peevishly, pursing his lips, 'and it's not that simple a process.'

'You sound like Foaly. But seriously Fowl, you knew from the start this was coming. You knew your threat was an empty one.

I'm not really sure who's the winner here,' continues Trouble, 'you, or them. Frond, if they knew they risked murder for nothing. D'arvit would they be furious. The only real loser is Holly, but not even because she's got you back.' Trouble pauses, 'Is that why you went about it like this? So that she would take you seriously? Because it worked.' Trouble watches Artemis' face, the relief that flickered along tensed muscles of his jaw, the faintest tremble of his lower lip.

Butler lays his hand on Artemis' shoulder, but when he looks up at his bodyguard, the man is staring absently out the window. Artemis sighs. Butler thinks he's so subtle sometimes.

'Tell them to send a shuttle round in three hours, to the North end, mind, I'll have everything ready by then. And if they do not keep to their end I actually will create something dangerous,' Artemis rises from his chair, briskly rearranging his suit jacket.

Trouble nods, 'I don't doubt it. But don't worry, they will; Foaly's been secretly taping these conversations. He says it's for a wedding present, but that's pretty much the same thing as blackmail in my book.'

'Wedding present?' echoes Artemis incredulously, but the screen is already blank.

Butler lets out a snort that sounds suspiciously like a laugh. When Artemis turns one cold, arched eyebrow on him, he covers it quickly with, 'Let's go down and see how Mulch is doing. Before there's nothing left of the kitchen,' as he moves out the door.

Artemis gives an exasperated huff, speaking to an empty room, 'Could someone explain to me, please, this preoccupation with matrimony by which the entire world appears to be consumed? For pity's sake, can none of you see the expression on her face at the suggestion of a wedding, never mind offspring? I can, and it is not one of joy and rapture.'

Having finished his soliloquy, Artemis too goes down to the kitchen.