And here we are again. I've taken to writing all of my stories out more of less completely before posting anything, so, hopefully everything should be out pretty quickly. I'm sorry for delays, if they do crop up, they're mostly of the nit-picking variety. Because, let's face it, I could nit-pick until the cows came home! And, may I just say that I love the Quebecois?

Also: anytime now, Kit, anytime. (Please?)

One more time, three cheers for ilex-ferox!

The Second Year.

Minerva heaved an enormous sigh. "I've got bodyguards, Butler."

"It doesn't matter. You genius types always think you're fine on your own – which, by the way, you are not – therefore you need to know the basics of self defence. Your father may allow you to wander the streets alone, unarmed and unprotected, but I won't have it."

Minerva sighed again, pouting.

"Besides," Butler said, "Artemis told me to look after you."

She knew there was no argument against that. Even in absentia, Artemis had the final say. It was all they could do for him now.

"Fine," she folded, but made it clear that she had every intention of being a sore loser.

"Good. Right. Let's start with something easy. Pretend I'm a bad guy," Butler scowled at her. She giggled. He cleared his throat pointedly.

"Sorry. Ah non! Un mauvais homme! Aidez-moi! Au secours!" Minerva twittered in a falsetto. This time it was Butler who sighed.

"Try to take this seriously, Minerva. Now, I, the bad guy, have got you cornered." He closed in on her, backing her into a corner of the living room. "Clearly, I am too big for you to knock out, and you can't run around me, so, what are you going to do?"

Wedged tightly into the corner, Minerva looked up at him, and the blood rose to her cheeks. She swallowed. "I ... ah ... what is the expression in English? Kick you in the balls?" she offered, trying for cavalier but not quite making it.

Butler groaned, stepping back. "No, no, no. That's what everyone expects. You pop out my eyeballs."

Minerva's blush disappeared as quickly as it had come. "Pop – eww! Dégueulasse! Please tell me that was just lost in translation."

"It wasn't. What you need to do is take your thumbs, like so," he picked up her thumbs and put them to his closed eyes, "and dig them in and to the side. Hard. As hard as you can. Don't think about it, just do it."

She pushed gingerly, her face disgusted.

Butler pulled her hands away from his eyes, holding them both in one of his. "Well, it's a start," he said.

Minerva shuddered delicately.

"Do you ever talk about your mother?" Butler set the plate of linguine alle vongole before her with a flourish.

"Pardon me?"

"You don't need to, if you don't want to, but, I just thought, maybe, you'd want someone to talk to about it. Artemis never talks about the things that hurt him. I don't think it's healthy."

"My mother ..." Minerva let out her breath in a huff.

"Though I suppose your father put you through lots of expensive therapy."

"Well, he certainly tried. I was a bit much for them to handle I think," she smirked.

"Sounds familiar," Butler smiled sadly, toying with his food.

The girl shrugged. "There's not really much to say about my mother. One day she was our mother, the next day she had eloped with the gardener. He specialised in topiary, you know."

Butler raised his eyebrows. "I hadn't realised."

"Mmm," she said, and began talking about the cinematography of Agnès Varda.

He took the hint and didn't mention it again.

After dinner, Minerva took her coffee and settled into her favourite armchair. She sipped once from her cup before carefully setting it aside. "Butler?" she began, looking at the fireplace.

"Yes?"

"Am I really so horrible as that?"

"What? As horrible as what, Minerva?"

"That even the hired help is easier to love?" She looked up at him and there were tear-tracks on her cheeks.

Butler put down his coffee cup in a hurry. "No, Minerva, no. You are not as horrible as that." Crossing to her chair, he tucked her under his chin in an all-encompassing hold.

"I – there are times when I still miss her. I don't want to, but I do. She's my mother." She swallowed hard, and he could feel it against his heart. "She is my mother and she left me. How could she have, Butler? How could she have? I mean, I understand that Beau and I aren't the best of children, but I must have done something. Mothers don't just leave their children!"

"It s not your fault, Minerva. It's just, some people, they can't handle anything out of the ordinary. They don't know what to do with it. And you're anything but ordinary. It doesn't mean you're horrible. It doesn't mean you don't deserve to be loved."

"Do I though? I mean, after all I've done? All I've intended to do?"

"Yes," he said, without hesitating. "Yes, you do. You've done more than just kidnap N˚1 in your life, Minerva, and I, for one, wouldn't trade you for all the gardeners in the world. No matter how fantastic their topiary was."

She took a shaky breath, fighting down a sob. "Nor I you," she said.

"Though I might consider trading Beau for a good window box display," he chuckled, and she could feel the rumble of it under her cheek.

"I ordered my men to shoot that creature in Beau's car, you know."

"I beg your pardon?" Butler looked up from The Art of War.

Minerva was watching winter rain run down the window panes, Anna Karenina lying forgotten in her lap. "When Artemis had that fairy break into my château and he stole Beau's little car – just before I kidnapped Holly. Do you remember?"

"Oh yes. Doodah."

"Doodah. Is that his name? I told my men to shoot him." She turned to face Butler. "It all seemed so important at the time. The demon, the Nobel, beating Artemis at his own game. Now it all seems like some bizarre dream I had, years and years ago. It feels like lifetimes ago. Like it happened to another person."

"Maybe it did."

"What do you mean?"

"You're not really who you were two years ago. You are a different person."

Minerva smiled at him. "I'd certainly like to think so. A fairy in a toy car, and I was screaming for them to shoot. As though I were deranged. Who knows? Maybe I was."

"You were just doing what you thought was the most important thing at the time."

She laughed mirthlessly. "You know, it's funny, I felt so grown up then, but now I look back and think what a child I was."

"Well, you're not even fourteen now, you've a long ways to go yet. I'm sure you'll look back on yourself in a few more years and think the same thing."

"I don't know," she said. "I like me as I am now. I would like to still be like this in a few years. I feel so ... calm, I suppose. Like this great, big, chaotic ... thing ..." she waved her hands vaguely, "has ended and now I'm nothing but me, at last. Like I had something – a virus - in my head and it had taken me over and now I'm finally rid of it. That need to – to – oh, I don't know. To prove myself, perhaps? Whatever it was, it was unpleasant."

"Well, puberty affects everyone in different ways," Butler said, straight faced, trying not to remember Artemis' vow to defeat the dreaded change.

Minerva blinked at him for a few seconds before she realised he was joking. "Oh, ha ha, yes, you're all comedians, you English."

"I'm not English."

"Of course you are; you speak it, don't you?"

"Well, yes, and the Quebecois also speak French."

Minerva paused briefly, then gave a twitchy little shudder. "I take your point, you're not English."

They were playing backgammon when Minerva said, out of the blue, "I used to be jealous of Holly."

"Excuse me?" Butler replied. He was beginning to realise that Minerva intended to tell him everything; she just had to do it in her own time. And time was something he had lots of.

"I know. Silly, isn't it? But I was ... not in love, I was infatuated with Artemis. And she and he, well, sometimes they're like one person, the way they work together. They're lucky. It's not everyone finds a ... friend ... like that."

"Yes, Artemis certainly is lucky with Holly." Butler eyed her thoughtfully. "But you said 'was'. You're not infatuated with Artemis any longer, then?"

She shook her head. "I know he means the world to you, and that he and I are very similar, but I ... I think I've found someone better."

Butler chuckled.

"What?" she asked, defensive.

"Nothing. It's just – I just love the way you two talk. Like adults. I forget that you're only barely fourteen. You're so serious, Minerva."

"It's a serious subject," she snapped, indignant.

"Oh, of course. But, Minerva, you are only fourteen. I'm sure you'll find several other someone betters before your time's up."

"You think so, do you?"

"I think so, yes."

"How many someone betters have you had?"

"That's different, I don't have time for lovers."

"You do now. Any of the village women caught your eye, Butler?"

"Minerva," Butler's voice was repressive.

"Truly, though, Butler. How many people have you loved?"

He shook his head. "Curiosity killed the cat, Minerva."

"Please." She opened her eyes very wide. "Vas-y, Butler, tell me a story. Just one."

Butler sighed. "Well, there was a girl in the academy. She was very talented."

"What happened to her?"

"She was killed in Ethiopia."

"Oh. I'm sorry."

"Don't worry, it was years ago. It wasn't exactly life-changing anyway."

"Still, that's sad."

"Yes," he agreed, and smiled to think her so changed that a stranger's death gave her pause for thought.

"Was anyone?"

"Was anyone what?"

"Life-changing."

"Ah ... well ..."

"Butler."

"There was a woman in France, once."

"Oh yes?" A smirk.

"That's when I learned to speak it, the language."

"She was a good teacher. From the north, I take it?"

"Strasbourg. The accent's still there?"

"Very much so. A lovely city."

"I certainly thought so."

They sat in silence for a moment, both waiting for the other. Butler broke first.

"She had red hair," he said. "Her name was Marianne. I loved her. She was very small, but she laughed a lot. She told me everything about herself and I never told her anything but lies."

"What happened?" Minerva asked quietly.

"Artemis was born," Butler smiled.

"Oh."

"I loved her, but he was worth it."

"Do you ... do you love him?"

"What? Of course. Of course I do. How could I not?"

"No, I mean ... like that."

"Like – oh. No. No. Not like that. Like a son. Like a brother. Like both of those and more, but not like that." He was quiet for a moment, then said, "It's close, but not quite it. It's like being in love, but without the desire, without any desire but to keep him safe and happy forever. Does that makes sense?"

"Yes," Minerva nodded. She paused, then continued. "We like to draw a lot of lines through love, but it doesn't always stick to them, does it?"

"No," Butler agreed, "it doesn't."

"I miss him," he said, a moment later.

She crossed to his chair and, perching herself on the armrest, wrapped her arms around his neck.

Forgotten on the table, their backgammon game lay abandoned halfway, neither of them in the lead. In the fading daylight, the whites and blacks of the board grew grey and forgotten.