Chapter Text
Ho Chi Minh City in the summer. Sweltering by anyone’s standards. Needless to say, twelve-year-old boys in designer black were not standard by anyone’s measure.
And yet there they were. Two of them. One perched like a crow in the shade of a half-shuttered café, notebook in hand, eyes gleaming with malice and brilliance. The other leaned against the café’s grimy wall, arms crossed, sweat soaking the collar of his tactical vest, blue eyes scanning the crowded street.
The first was Artemis Fowl II, criminal heir, prodigy, and conspiracy theorist. The second was Domovoi Butler, heir to centuries of warrior tradition, a bodyguard-in-training who, by some stroke of fate (or poor judgment), had been assigned to protect Artemis until death — or until one of them snapped.
They had not yet decided which would come first.
Artemis tapped his pen against his chin.
“I believe our target is approaching.”
Butler didn’t look. “Or she’s another tourist on a bad trip. You sure this one’s the fairy?”
Artemis didn’t answer immediately — because Artemis never answered until he was certain. He adjusted the settings on his wrist computer, a custom rig spliced together from parts that, in theory, did not exist.
“Positive,” he said. “Look at her gait. Defensive, erratic. Skin flushed from magic suppression. Sunglasses despite the clouds. That is a fairy, and she is ours.”
Butler grunted. “You say ‘ours’ like we’re poachers.”
“We’re scientists,” Artemis said smoothly. “Pioneers. Fairykind has hidden long enough. It's time they joined the modern economy.”
“And you’re going to force them with a kidnapping.”
Artemis’s lips twitched — his version of a grin.
Butler didn’t grin. He’d spent three weeks at Madame Ko’s school arguing that he was too young for this assignment. That no one should be paired with Artemis Fowl.
The Fowls didn’t need protection, they needed surveillance.
Madame Ko had replied only this:
“You are the strongest child I’ve ever trained. And he is the most dangerous.”
Then she’d added, “Try not to let him destroy the world before your thirteenth birthday.”
Butler sighed, shifting his weight as the woman in question — the fairy — staggered toward the alley behind the café.
Artemis stood, adjusting his cufflinks. “Showtime, Domovoi.”
“You know I hate it when you use my full name.”
“You know I hate it when people second-guess me.”
They moved in tandem — one calculating, one coiled — toward the alley and the impossible secret that waited within.
Two twelve-year-old boys. One heist.
And a thousand years of magic about to crack wide open.