A/N: Sorry the Sherlock dialogue is so flippant. I can't help myself.

"That's preposterous," snorted Mr. Sherlock Holmes, pushing himself back in his armchair. "Look, John, these idiot journalists want an interview with me. Don't they have some fascinating celebrity affair to scribble about?"

John Watson threw aside his paper with a sigh. "Don't feign modesty, Sherlock, it throws a strain on even your thespian skills."

And if they are looking for a celebrity affair, they've got another think coming, he thought darkly.

"I'm being serious, John. Are people actually interested?"

John gave a short laugh. "Are people...can't you deduce that from the hits on my blog? You're a brilliant detective, of course they're interested."

Sherlock snapped his computer shut with a sigh. "Why should they be interested? No one cares about the deductions. All they want are happy endings and sappy reunions. If they cared about what was important they'd be studying my methods on my site, not the tedious scrawl you inflict on the world."

"Everyone from Sally Donovan to the Queen of England reads my tedious scrawl," John snapped.

"I've not had the pleasure of meeting her Majesty, but Sergeant Donovan is the finest example of a mediocre mind I've ever had the misfortune to meet."

"Right," mused John. "She really is too good for Anderson."

"The point being, Doctor, that any detective worth their trenchcoat..."

John was about to point out that while Sherlock set the bar for deductive reasoning, he could hardly expect to be enshrined as the Scotland Yard fashion standard, when Gregory Lestrade burst through the door.

He was wearing, John noted with displeasure, a long grey trenchcoat.

"Most people knock," murmured Sherlock, pretending to scan a newspaper.

"There's been a double homicide on west Farringdon Road, will you come?"

"Not as tedious as the last double murder, I hope?"

Lestrade tossed a file to the coffee table in answer. Sherlock leaned forward with a sigh to scan the contents, but within seconds his eyes darkened in interest.

"Acceptable."

The façade of indifference fell away, and Lestrade breathed a quick sigh of relief as the world's only consulting detective leapt to his feet, interviews and queens forgotten. "Meet you there in fifteen minutes. John, call a cab."

At a look from John, Sherlock made an insincere attempt to hide his glee and failed. Long minutes after the lanky detective vanished from the room his words hung in the air, twisting it with the tension John had learned to anticipate.

"What are you waiting for? The hunt is on!"

Artemis smiled at the purr of the motor holding him aloft. It had been simple enough, reengineering the fairy-sized wingset to hold his weight. The tricky part was doing it right under Foaly's nose. Fortunately the centaur seemed distracted lately.

Artemis transferred his attention to the ground below. In this weather few people were likely to be up and about. With his makeshift camouflage, Artemis felt safe flying just beneath the low cloud cover to find his way.

Too close to the sun and your wings will melt, he thought ironically. Too close to the clouds and the spray will drench them.

There were certainly parallels in the situations. If you substituted Artemis' past for the isle of Crete, a handful of angry fairy friends for the evil king, and his conscience for Icarus. Artemis brushed the thought away irritably. If his friends hadn't seen this coming they'd been blind indeed.

Leaning forward the way he'd seen Holly do, Artemis swept through a low, drenching fog that sent crackling through the microcircuitry of his cam-foil covering. Apparently fairies had yet to invent waterproof. He'd give Foaly a hard time about that, if he ever saw him again.

In a few minutes, Artemis knew, he'd be entirely visible to anyone wandering below. He ground the engine into a higher gear and strained to make out the lights of Dublin through the fog. Long minutes after they came into sight, Artemis touched down, about half a mile from the city. Stowing the collapsible wings into a knapsack, he followed the road into the least appealing part of town and ducked into the nearest public restroom. Holding his breath and ignoring the mildew that crept up the walls, Artemis stepped into a stall and quickly stripped off his clothing. Grimacing, he pulled on a pair of torn jeans, a t-shirt advertising some band or other, and a pair of thin-soled converse that were even less practical than his oxfords. But he had little choice. Apart from making him a target for petty theft and advertising his whereabouts to any fairies who came a-calling, his expensive suit was dripping wet.

Stepping out of the stall, Artemis studied his reflection in the water-stained mirror. Were these jeans torn on purpose? And what on earth was a bee gee? Butler had brought the clothes from the manor one day on a whim, reminiscing about the days when Angeline Fowl tried to persuade her son to dress like a normal teenager. The story was obviously engineered to make him feel something, but all Artemis could muster up was the faint distaste he felt now, looking in the mirror.

With a sigh, Artemis shoved the damp hair back from his brow. At least he'd blend in with every loafer in town. He set off for the train station by a predetermined route, slouching and trying to look as vacant as the rest of them. Mother would be so proud.

The adrenaline pulsing through Holly's veins was nothing new. As LEPRecon's finest, she'd hunted down dozens of perps in her day, shooting up through the vents and skimming just above the earth's crust at speeds that would skin the hide off a troll. Neutrino at the ready and set to stun.

What was new was the lightheaded, all-engulfing panic slamming through her. It wasn't every day that the runner was your best friend.

For once, it wasn't the bodies that interested Sherlock. At least, not right away. His eyes were riveted on the canvas tube curled in the younger man's hand and clamped in place by rigor mortis. After close examination of the bodies, he gently prised the tube out of the man's hand.

"John," he said. "Do you remember the Vermeer case?"

"What…that's the painting?"

Sherlock straightened with an impatient shrug. "Obviously not. Look at the aging of the canvas…No. Not the painting. The billboard. At the museum. They thought the Vermeer was another recovery of the Fairy Thief."

John racked his brain. "The bloke that was in the papers a few years ago? Lost paintings brought back, or some such? I always figured he was a fraud. I mean, how can one person possibly…"

"Who says it's one person?" interrupted Sherlock. "Then again, who says it's not? The prudent observer will consider all possibilities from the beginning."

Gregory Lestrade was used to being ignored. On the whole, Sherlock seemed to regard him more as his own personal crime detector than the actual detective inspector.

"Hang on, then what's on the canvas? And who are these men?"

Sherlock was examining the fastening on the tube and chose not to answer.

Lestrade snapped. "Sherlock, so help me I will start charging you admission to my crime scenes…"

The consulting detective glanced up in disbelief—not at Lestrade's annoyance, that was nothing new, but John had turned away too quickly and let out a strangled choking noise. His shoulders heaved slightly, and Sherlock was almost certain he heard a muffled snort.

Deciding John's amusement was beneath his notice, the detective straightened and addressed Lestrade loftily.

"I suppose you may recognize this?"

The long fingers unrolled the painting, and Lestrade's mouth dropped open.

"That's…that's the original. The Fairy Thief itself!"

"How about you, John?" Sherlock turned the canvas toward him. "An art lover?"

"It's been plastered all over the Internet for the past five years, of course I recognize it. So someone tried to take it back?"

"Someone did take it back, evidently. The French authorities must have hushed it up - international embarrassment, I imagine - and then, when these two got to London, they fought among themselves. One of them didn't want to split the profits."

"Which tells us-?"

"That they most likely have a buyer already. This isn't the sort of thing you can put up for auction. Find the buyer, and chances are we'll find an abundance of stolen artwork…"

Sherlock trailed off, mind leaping ahead. Truth be told, the investigation at hand would have been far more interesting had the burglars not fallen out with one another. Breaking into the Louvre - now that was a job for professionals. And here they both lay, dead at his feet. A waste. The buyer would no doubt be some eccentric collector with too much money on his or her hands and the moral compass of a used car dealer. Dull. The only thing of real interest here was the tangential connection to the Fairy Thief himself, who had gone strangely quiet within the past few months.

Trouble? Disinterest? Just lying low?

Now there was a loose end worth following up on.

And if the painting remained missing for much longer, it might even be enough to draw him out.

Artemis boarded the train to London at precisely half past ten. Another unexpected move. Artemis had a famous dislike of crowds, but even so he felt a pulse of excitement at the thought of the city. It was still the best place in the world to get lost.

It was several moments before Angeline noticed the petals spiraling one by one to the uneven lawn. This far from the manor, the estate was rarely tended, and she had forbidden any gardener from coming near the rose bush with his shears. Somehow, alone with the ruin of the old tower on the sloping lawn, against a backdrop of rough countryside, it reminded her of something she had lost, something that had always bloomed wild.

Watching the flowers peel apart and drop to the ground in the absence of a breeze, Angeline felt fear clutch absurdly at her heart. The time for reclamation had gone, they seemed to whisper. Whatever was lost was lost forever.

Aurum est potestas, thought Artemis, staring out the grimy window at the countryside rushing by under the gray sky. Gold is power.

It was the motto that the old Artemis, the Fowl heir, had trained himself to live by. Something about it still appealed, but it also felt…empty.

For a long time now I have had more than gold to live for. And today I've left all that behind.

What a laugh. He had left it all behind long ago. For the thousandth time, Artemis turned his mind back to the first agonizing moment he could recollect.

Well, this is a lousy excuse for an afterlife, was his first hazy thought as a pure spirit. It was an unsettling sensation, as though he was a kite in the breeze; shifting unevenly in a wind that blew through him and tethered to Earth by the thinnest of strings. Investigating the connection, Artemis discovered it was of his own making.

With that realization, the memories slid back into his mind. Some happy. Most painful. With each memory the connection strengthened.

He had to return for his family, his friends. Foaly would know what to do; Artemis would stay here for as long as it took.

Staying here was the tricky bit. Processing sensations as a spirit in the mortal realm was maddening. It was as though Artemis possessed a whole new set of senses that refused to settle into his mind. For almost the first time, he knew real intellectual struggle.

An eternity of wrestling with his own mind brought Artemis to the conclusion that his condition was an impossible paradox. Beset with material sensations he was unable to process, Artemis essentially shut down to preserve himself from madness. Whether or not he succeeded was open for debate.

And so he settled into a trancelike state. The sort of meditation and mind clearing methods he'd practiced in his life were child's play as a spirit.

Angeline, still hollow-eyed with fresh sadness, was walking the grounds one day when she first noticed the small bramble. It had produced one bud; unopened but already withering.

One day the small, still-alert portion of Artemis' mind wandered again across his connection with Earth. With a jolt of alarm, he saw that it had dwindled to a thread. Artemis did the natural thing. He took hold of it and followed it home, fully expecting that his first brush with earth would be his last.

She returned the next day, and the next, again and again. Not knowing why. And every day she spoke to it. Words into the air. Words that flung themselves on the breeze, evaporated in the sunlight, shattered into crystal and pierced the ground, and all the time Artemis grew stronger.

If it was love that held him there, it was magic that kept him sane. Artemis had found another escape, but it required sacrifice. He was lost, knew nothing of himself. Immersed in the traces of magic in the soil he clung to. Drawn to it, into the earth, pulled down through the centuries and into its earliest history.

And that meant the history of the fairies.

"France wants their painting back, little brother."

John jumped. If it was rare for Mycroft to make a visit to Baker Street, it was even less common for him to address Sherlock directly. Neither man seemed interested in a relationship closer than mobile range. At least this time he didn't kidnap me, thought John resignedly. That was a plus.

Sherlock, for his part, remained motionless on the sofa, not bothering to open his eyes as he addressed the ceiling. "Why is it that no one ever knocks? You could be interrupting—"

"Close range target practice?" Mycroft shot a disapproving glance at the mangled smiley face on the wall. "I do hope you have the sense not to aim at the door, dear brother. And Mrs. Hudson charged me for that, you know."

"Did she? I was almost certain I withdrew the money from the Holmes family legacy. You're not the only heir, or have you forgotten me so soon? I could have sworn you sent a card last Christmas."

"That was three Christmases ago, and you didn't open it."

"Immaterial. It was unmistakably from you, and a man of your position in government ought not to buy envelopes of such poor quality that one can see through to the cheap snowman design within."

Mycroft rolled his eyes. "At any rate, you didn't pay Mrs. Hudson from the family account. You deleted that password when you figured out mine."

Sherlock stretched and yawned to conceal a sadistic grin. "I did, didn't I? I was doing you a favor. You'd never get through a tenth of that pile on your own. Club membership only costs so much, especially considering you founded it. And you shouldn't use the name of the girl who dumped you in first grade as password."

"Heavily encrypted and translated through three languages!"

"Does Pig Latin really count?"

Tempted though he was to let the conversation play out, John spoke up. "Hold up a moment, ladies. Mycroft, did you say you came for the painting?"

Mycroft , who was drawing breath for an indignant reply, turned with an effort to John instead. "Yes. Classic Impressionist piece, centuries old, worth millions, have you seen it? Only the French are a tad irate that it's gone missing and hasn't been returned yet. Forgive my selfish interference, I simply like to keep the international peace..."

John heaved an exasperated sigh and turned. "Sherlock…"

"Surely you know, dear brother, that murder evidence is generally handled by the police."

"I think we both know, brother dear, that in London it's generally not."

"It's been eight months, for Frond's sake, it's been eight months." Holly spoke in a numbed tone. "Where can Artemis Fowl hide for eight months?"

The panic had never really gone away. It alternated with numb despair and the wrenching failure from the first night she'd flown back to the shuttleport; shaking so hard with weariness and grief that she could barely keep her shield up.

Only Butler knew what she felt. And only because he felt the failure press upon him every bit as hard as she did. A bodyguard who had lost his Principal and best friend. Again.

Again they went over the old debate. Where could someone like Artemis disappear to? Holly knew Butler's greatest fear: that the boy had encountered an old enemy. Jon Spiro perhaps, or the Russian Mafia. When Artemis made enemies, he didn't go halfway.

He'd be an easy target now, with no memory of even the most hated face. Holly had attempted to assuage Butler's fears until they haunted her own dreams at night. But now she simply rubbed her eyes and sighed. Foaly snorted in dismay.

"Let's begin at the beginning," he said for the thousandth time. And so they went over it. The missing wingset. The missing clothes. The lack of footprints. All those hours, hidden away in the lab…

It was obvious, really.

Again Foaly pointed out what they all knew. Even taking into account whatever modifications Artemis had made, the wingset wouldn't hold him aloft forever. Nor could he count on the cloud cover to last. Holly's mesmer elicited no recollection of a flying lad from any of the humans she'd questioned. So if he used cam-foil, which he probably had, it was a temporary measure. Artemis had been limited to a couple of hours to make his getaway. They searched an ever-increasing radius around the manor again and again for clues. But from Dublin or any major town Artemis could have taken human transport nearly anywhere.

Holly interrupted, as she had the past five or six times. "It's Artemis, though," she pointed out. "What would Artemis do?"

The three fairies and one human stared at one another in dejected silence, hoping someone would say something that hadn't been said before. And then someone did.

"She's right," commented Mulch, biting off a chunk of carrot with a loud snap. Holly nearly fell out of her chair in shock, and not from the noise.

"I am?"

"Sure!" Mulch waved the stump of his carrot. "We've got at least one advantage. We know Artemis, but he doesn't…"

"…know us." finished Holly.

Mulch nodded. "And it's one thing to make an escape. It's quite another to stay in hiding. I should know. How did you find me in Los Angeles, after I faked my death?"

"Because you couldn't keep your paws off other people's possessions," Foaly reminisced fondly. "That was a sweet day for the LEP…"

"That's right," said Holly excitedly. "You can hide, but something will always betray you. Old habits…tastes…"

"Then," Butler spoke up, "what do we know about Artemis? What do we know he'll never give up?"

There was a pause, and then all four spoke at once.

"Gold," said Mulch.

"His friends," murmured Holly.

"Research," suggested Foaly.

"Crime," said Butler.

The fairies turned to Butler in shock. Holly was the first to find her voice.

"How can you say that?" she demanded. "He's reformed, or had you forgotten? Whatever else may have happened, he's a better person now. He saved the planet, for Frond's sake!"

Butler's smile was twisted. "Even at his best, Artemis is still Artemis."

"What do you mean?" Mulch demanded. "And why didn't he let me in on it?"

"I don't think you'd have found it as lucrative as you imagine, Mulch," responded the manservant unenthusiastically. "Do you remember the Fairy Thief?"

Holly groaned. "Remember? That painting was all he'd talk about for a month. I assumed it went into the Impressionist art collection he was always badgering me to take a look at."

Butler suppressed a smile. "You should keep a closer eye on the human news." He turned to Foaly. "I'll bet pony boy knows what I'm talking about."

"Clever," murmured Foaly, staring at the ceiling. "Clever Mud Boy. So it didn't stop with the painting, did it."

Holly thumped a fist on the table. "Any time you two want to explain…"

Foaly tore his eyes from the ceiling and turned to Holly. "About five years ago," he began, "a lost painting turned up out of nowhere at the Louvre Art Museum in France. It was a piece called The Fairy Thief, so long lost that its existence was a legend."

Holly drew in a breath. "He didn't keep it."

"No," Butler broke in. "He found a new…calling."

"Stealing art?"

"Stealing stolen art," the manservant corrected. "And returning it to the public."

"But…why didn't he tell me?"

Butler shifted uncomfortably. "I think he hoped you'd hear about it on your own."

Mulch snickered. "Mud Boy fell for you pretty hard at one point."

Holly blushed to the roots of her hair and was about to hurl a carrot at Mulch when Foaly's words came back to her. "But it didn't stop there?"

"No. There are only so many lost masterpieces to recover, and it would be boring to bring them all back too quickly, even if it were possible. At least, that's how Artemis explained it to me. He started to branch out."

Holly was nodding.

"So…"

"So he stole from criminals. Money. Gold. Stolen jewels disappeared from strongboxes overnight. A portion of it he kept—more as souvenirs than anything, I think. A tribute to the name of Fowl. Most of it he donated. Charities became wealthy overnight. Did a lot of good in the world."

"But that's not why he did it," Holly said slowly.

"Not the only reason, no." Foaly broke in. "Crime is what he's good at. It was no easier for him to give that up than it was for you to give up the badge."

Holly swiveled to glare at Butler. "And you didn't tell us this before because…?"

"Because I wasn't sure he wanted you to know. After all, he never even told his family."

"Did you tell him? After…you know…"

Butler shook his head, looking sheepish. "I'm his bodyguard. Do you think I was eager to continue those adventures?"

"So let me get this straight," Holly said sarcastically. "My best friend has been roaming loose for eight months in a world full of powerful crime lords he doesn't know about, who would love nothing more than to wring his skinny neck for reasons he can't recall."

Foaly spoke up with an injured look. "I thought I was your best—" but Holly cut him off, glaring at Butler in disbelief. Her voice trembled with rage.

"All those conversations we had…every time I tried to reassure you that Artemis wasn't in mortal danger from old enemies…you were holding this back?"

"It isn't as though I haven't been searching tirelessly for him, Holly," he growled. "But this is Artemis Fowl we're talking about. He never took a step until a scheme was perfect. No one knew who the Fairy Thief was, and no one will ever know."

"Not even himself," muttered Holly. For a few seconds there was silence around the table.

But then she jerked as something struck her. "You're right. He never took a step until a scheme was perfect, unless he had to…and he had all the time in the world here with us."

She shook her head. "All that time we were so careful not to pressure him. All we were doing was giving him as much time as he pleased to perfect his runaway scheme…he didn't hop a random train, he knew exactly where he was going, probably had a new life already in place. Artemis always has a plan."

"And his plans are always unexpected," pointed out Foaly, using one of Mulch's carrots for emphasis.

"So then, what wouldn't we expect from Artemis?"

There was a long pause.

"The obvious," said Butler and Foaly together.

"Okay." Holly leaned forward in excitement, palms flat against the table, heart rate speeding up. "Where do you go when you run away from home?"

Another pause. Then…

"No," Foaly said in a hushed tone. "No way. It's too cliché…"