Chapter Eighteen: Quests and Questions

Foaly hated having nothing to do, not because it made him feel bored, but because it was when he was bored that he did the most ridiculous things. The worst time had been when Root, after having had to put up with one too may snide comments from the tech department, had savagely cut his budget. For the next few weeks Foaly had been unable to afford any parts he needed to do his inventing and had spent his time building elaborate sculptures out of straws from the LEP cafeteria right outside of Root's office. Needless to say, the tech department's budget was very quickly restored.

Now, however, Foaly was being denied even straws, he had been reduced to tax forms. Although, in truth, the filling out and filing was a very useful activity. Despite having been in business for nearly a year no one at the Short-Diggums Detective Agency had been keeping any sort of records for the government, most likely because of their utter lack of actual cases.

Of course that would all change as soon as Estella's father was found. Then there would be some money to account for and…and Foaly didn't really care. He cursed his thoughts for once again wandering onto the one subject he was really trying to avoid thinking about. It had now been almost two weeks since Estella had disappeared. Two weeks without so much as a clue or even a note of reassurance from the supposedly reformed terrorist group that had taken her. As much as Foaly tried to hide it from himself he was worried.

Really worried.

So worried that he was going to fill out these damn forms in triplicate if it would get his mind off her!

With a groan Foaly tossed his pen aside. It was no use, now he was depressed. That could only mean it was time to annoy Mulch again.

"But really, why would you go so out of your way to get caught time after time? Do you have some thing for prisons? If you do you can tell me, I swear I won't tell Holly, but you might want to see someone about that, maybe a support group."

Foaly smirked to see that the dwarf was gnashing his teeth in a particularly gruesome fashion. He had been throwing out similar insults for the past hour or so to help pass the time and by now Mulch was clearly trying to suppress the urge to bite him.

"Being a thief is a lot harder than it looks, hoofer. If anyone else had tried to pull off all the heists I did they wouldn't have even managed half of them!" Mulch returned to his current task, polishing his rock collection, with a venomous air.

Foaly ignored the waves of hate radiating in his direction. "Hoofer? Was that really the best you could think of? I thought you hardened criminals had all sorts of unpleasant things to call each other. I guess that's what happens when you're the sort of convict who calls biting his way into a bunch of mud houses difficult heists and then still winds up getting caught. No wonder it took you a few centuries to figure out that you should quit, not that you're doing a much better job as a detective."

Mulch ground his teeth again; in mere moments his rock collection was bound to become air-born if Foaly kept this up. Fortunately for both of them it was then that a nervous-looking goblin came into the office.

"Um, is Miss Short here?" the newcomer asked tentatively.

It was a few moments before Mulch was able to string together a reply, he still wasn't used to people coming to ask about anything other than directions. "No…she's off doing…important…detecting…stuff."

"Oh…okay then."

The two continued to stare at each other while the air in the room got increasingly awkward. After several minutes it became obvious that neither of them intended to say anything else and Foaly knew that he could either break the silence or slowly go insane.

He cleared his throat and the goblin looked at him. "You know, Mr. Diggums works here too and I might as well be on the payroll. Add in that we both also have perfectly functional ears and it might seem like a good idea to talk to us about whatever you're here for instead."

The goblin looked a bit startled at this, but then sighed as if admitting that Foaly's suggestion was probably a good one.

"You've probably already heard of me," he said. "My name is Malvis. I talked with Miss Short about my…group about two weeks ago

Foaly's eyes widened. "You're the one who tried to get Holly to stop investigating the Jalingers by feeding her that phony 'We're not really bad' story!"

Malvis looked taken aback. "No, I was telling her the truth. We really are—."

"Then why did you kidnap Estella?"

The goblin took a few steps back, since one never wants to be very close to something that can trample you when it's angry. "That's what I came here to talk to Miss Short about. I think there might be something wrong in the Jalingers."

Foaly and Mulch didn't say anything to that, but their expressions made it clear that it was a good thing that sayings weren't literal or they would have both gone blind from the obvious.

Malvis ignored them and continued. "When I spoke to Miss Short I told her that we'd arrange for her to see Mamilton so she'd know he was alright. I didn't think it would be a problem since he came of his own free will, but I haven't been able to see him, no one has. He's been in his lab constantly, doing something important. I heard a few weeks ago that he was giving our leader trouble and then Miss Lunos showed up. It didn't seem right. She always had guards with her and she clearly hadn't told you guys where she was going and…well…I guess it just got me wondering…"

"If maybe you really were in a revived terrorist group instead of a touchy-feely cult?" finished Mulch, looking like he was being a bit overwhelmed by the waves of stupidity crashing down on him. "I would have thought that someone in a gang would have enough street-smarts to figure that one out, but I guess that's what you can expect from a goblin."

"And I would have thought that someone with a criminal history would have enough street-smarts to realize that insulting someone who can throw fireballs at him might be a bad idea." Malvis snarled.

Foaly had seen too many rounds of arrests after ugly goblin-dwarf turf battles to not see where this was going and hastily cut in. "Alright, so you're feeling doubts. What did you expect us to do about it?"

"I was hoping you'd agree to let me take you to where Ms. Lunos is and you could get her out, find out what's going on. I'd do it myself, but I don't want the Jalingers to think that I'm doubting them." He sighed. "They've done a lot for me and they deserve more trust than I'm giving them."

Foaly immediately leapt up at the thought of finding Estella; he was ready to agree but Mulch cut him off.

"Hold on Hoofer, this sounds like a trap, a really bad one too. Why would this guy be willing to just take us to their headquarters when they've been keeping everything top secret until now?"

Foaly scowled. He had never thought a day would come when Mulch would think of something he hadn't. Clearly the end of the world was fast approaching.

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Matt was beginning to feel very tired. Within the space of a few hours she had been caught in a dress by her best friend, resolved a major argument, and come back to school only to have a doorknob smash into her head. She'd also found proof of the existence of new sentient life and magic, but she was trying not to think about that.

When Matt had been younger she had dreamed of meeting a fairy and had always been absolutely certain that she would one day. Despite having since passed through the years of awkwardness and innocence-crushing that come with puberty she had secretly retained this certainty; which is why it was a shame Matt's day had been so stressful; she would have been ecstatic otherwise. As it was all she had energy for was trying to avoid wondering why Holly kept staring at her bug-eyes and talking with a syrupy voice. Matt had been waiting all her life to meet a fairy; she didn't want to remember it as the first time she'd been hit on by a woman.

She looked over to Juliet, who was on the phone with Artemis. Matt still wasn't entirely sure what was going on, but from what she heard it sounded like Artemis was alright, though not likely to show up anytime soon.

Matt looked up at the ceiling. It had been almost two months since she had first come to St. Bartleby's and met Artemis. In that time he had come to mean so much to her; he was the first real friend she'd ever had. It was strange to think that there was so much she had never known about him.

Just then her thoughts were interrupted when she heard Juliet say good-bye and hang up her phone.

"Alright Holly," she said, "It looks like Artemis is under house arrest for the time being. You're going to need to wait until my brother gets here to hear whatever he's supposed to tell you. And stop trying to use the mesmer on Matt, all it's doing is scaring her."

Holly sighed and rubbed her forehead. "Of course, nothing can ever be simple with Artemis Fowl."

Juliet ignored the elf and turned her attention to Matt. "I think it's best that you head off to bed now. Artemis and the rest of us have a lot to deal with tonight that has nothing to do with you. I'd appreciate it if you stayed out of the way."

Matt's eyes widened, surely Juliet couldn't expect her to just leave after everything that had happened that night. There was still far too much she needed an explanation for. Sadly Matt didn't get a chance to make any argument aside from a few stutters and exclamations of "But—," and "Wait!" as Juliet immediately began ushering her from the room. Matt tried to struggle, but for some reason her strength wasn't quite up to that of the professional wrestler's.

Soon Matt found herself in the hallway facing Artemis' locked door. She glared at it for a moment before turning on her heel and heading towards St. Bartleby's main entrance. Juliet had said that Butler would be coming to speak to Holly, maybe he'd be willing to give Matt a few answers first.

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Had Butler been able to take a step back and look at himself he would have realized immediately that something was not right. His thoughts were muddled at best and his movements seemed more like a sleepwalker's than an expert bodyguard's. It had begun the moment Artemis had taken him aside and told him to tell Holly about Crane and Sparrow and how the Jalingers were using them to relay their messages.

For some reason Butler had hesitated for a moment; there had been something he wanted to tell Artemis, something important. However, he hadn't been able to voice his concern before he found his thoughts becoming more and more incoherent. He had just mechanically nodded to Artemis and gone to the car to begin the drive back to St. Bartleby's.

When he arrived at the school almost all the lights were out. It was nearly eleven at night and St. Bartleby's had a strict curfew for its students. However, the main entrance was still lit up. Standing in the doorway was a man Butler recognized as the school's headmaster and standing next to him, looking rather relieved, was Matthew.

Matt smiled at Butler in a slightly nervous manner. "I'm glad you made it! I was starting to get worried when Artemis left without me, because of course I'm supposed to be going with him to his home for the weekend. Then the headmaster found me here and hadn't heard anything about me leaving so I was getting really nervous; but then of course I remembered you were supposed to be the one to pick me up!"

Butler stared blankly at her. Normally he would have seen through her babbling in a moment, but right his thoughts were so muddled he wasn't sure if Artemis actually had asked him to pick her up or not. After a few moments of silence Matt began to panic.

"You know, because you're supposed to come by here anyway, to go to Artemis' room to get his things."

Butler decided to play along, "Of course." He turned to the headmaster. "I'm sorry sir; I'm just a bit tired. Master Burbenshire is supposed to come with me as I pack up some of Master Fowl's belongings. Now if you'll excuse me…"

He gestured for Matt to follow him and they headed up the stairs to the dorm rooms. For a moment the headmaster considered arguing but decided against it. It was getting late and he had no wish to end the day by getting into a dispute with someone nearly twice his size.

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Sorry for the massive delay. I've just been kind of sitting on this chapter for a while. I'd like to thank Hali for his/her wonderful review, which inspired me to finally post this chapter. I am still going to finish this story, but I'm also doing other writing now so I won't make any promises about when it will be updated. I hope you've enjoyed reading this chapter though.