One floor up there is a library that any literary scholar would give his tweed elbow patches to be buried in, but on this day there are only two individuals there, seated at a table overlooking Monmouth Street. Most humans might assume that neither of them had the requisite decades under their belts to be accomplished scholars, but most people would be dead wrong. For the human who sat with a cooler bag between the knees of his riding breeches may have had the appearance of a Caucasian male in his late twenties, but his one-hundred-and-fifty-year-old brain had been recently transplanted into this body, which he’d had 3-D printed by his longtime ally Ishi Myishi, supplier of gadgets and gizmos to the world’s criminal elite, using a schematic provided by the second person at the table, who’d had the plans but not the equipment necessary to make them a reality. This person was not a human child, as one might assume from her size, but a lady dwarf.
They made an odd couple. The human, with his runner’s physique and flowing black beard, was dressed impeccably in a tweed suit tailored to his rather antiquated specifications with lapels half an inch wider than the latest trend, and he wore a black satin beret with an embossed fleur-de-lis pattern. The dwarf was cosplaying as Sharkgirl in a neon-blue jumpsuit, a shark helmet, and biker boots. Odd couples were the norm in the Acorn Club, for it was one of five such clubs around the globe where humans and fairies who operated outside the bounds of their respective legal systems could safely meet. An interspecies safe space.
One of the few well-known facts about dwarves is that they are extremely photosensitive, but if the proximity to a window caused this dwarf anxiety, it didn’t manifest in any visible way, except for a drumming of gloved fingers on the arm of her leather chair, a sound that would have intensely irritated Myles Fowl had he been there to hear it. Having said that, even though Myles was almost four hundred miles away, he was, in a sense, present, because the conversation was shortly to focus on the Fowl twin’s immediate future.
“Nice to see you again, human,” the dwarf said in passable but heavily accented English. Her name was Gveld Horteknut. Gveld had been all the rage as a baby name some five hundred years ago, but modern dwarf parents considered it a little on the nose, as it was the old Dwarfish word for gold. Most dwarves were tired of everyone thinking that they spent all day lusting after gold and all night dreaming about it when they were also terribly fond of silver and diamonds. Gveld, however, adored her name almost as much as she adored the precious metal she was named for.
“Is it really?” said the duke, unconvinced. They both knew this was an arrangement born of convenience. The Horteknuts had contacted him simply because their fairy police sources knew about his dislike of all things Fowl, and his association with Ishi Myishi.
“You look better than the last time we met,” said Gveld. Their last conversation had been on the duke’s island residence some days previously, when Gveld had made her offer. She needed two brand new bodies, and he could keep one. The one he now inhabited.
“I wish I could say the same for you,” said the human in a weird chomping fashion, as though he were still getting used to his teeth, which, in actuality, he was.
This was not an insult per se, as Gveld’s features were effectively hidden behind the shield of her helmet.
“I have always thought a mind transfer would be electrical or magical,” commented Gveld Horteknut. “But you decided to go the organic route. I imagine that was a harrowing few hours.”
The man nodded spasmodically. “You have no idea. I was conscious for the entire procedure and spent yesterday recovering in Myishi’s Kensington clinic. It was necessary, to ensure the old me made the trip across. And let me assure you, a man hasn’t truly confronted mortality until he has listened to his own skull being cut open with a bone saw.”
“It was a paper-thin skull, from what I hear,” noted Gveld Horteknut. “You could have cracked it with a pebble.”
The man rapped on his forehead. “I prefer this one, madam. Guaranteed for half a century.”
“Any memory loss or confusion?” asked the dwarf.
“I was warned there would be a little,” admitted the man. “Is there, in fact, a place called Australia?”
“Indeed,” said Gveld. “Quite a big place.”
The man shrugged. “My memories of it seem fantastical. Monstrous insects, wave riding, and so forth. And tell me, is there a Narnia?”
“Absolutely,” said Gveld, and it was possible that she smiled behind her light-filtering face shield. “But it’s not so glorious anymore, since the human tourists happened upon it.”
“I feel that perhaps you are toying with me, Ms. Horteknut,” said the rejuvenated human. “But it is of no matter. The transfer took place mere hours ago, and I was warned that there would be a period of adjustment. My limbs perform tasks that they have not been instructed to undertake, but this will improve with time.”
“You are in no condition to hunt the Fowl Twins,” said Gveld, needling the human.
The man waved a hand, perhaps on purpose. “That too is of little import, as this story is not my story. I am content to be an anonymous facilitator, and you, in return, shall deliver Myles to me—if your plan succeeds this time.”
The dwarf ignored the needle. “As you know, Lord Teddy, Myles Fowl has a habit of escaping certain death. And as it turns out, I need him alive. For the time being.”
The Englishman attempted a scowl, but his disobedient features grinned instead, which was appropriate enough in the circumstances. “Alive? I would kill them both a dozen times over if the cost of clones wasn’t so blasted prohibitive.”
Gveld poked the cooler bag with the toe of her biker boot. “On the subject of clones, is the item in this…bag?”
“The subject should be copies rather than clones, and my pal Myishi was grateful for the plans, but at any rate, yes, what you need is freshly printed in this bag,” said Lord Teddy, and he too nudged the cooler with the heel of his riding boot. “And this is not just any bag. It is a Deliveroo bag. No one will give you a second glance while you’re carrying this. It’s a tight squeeze in there for our merchandise, I grant you, but I care not a fig for the comfort of anything that even resembles the Fowl brat.”
“I hope there is more than a resemblance,” said Gveld.
The man unzipped the bag. Mist rose from the dry-ice packs and electrolyte blocks that were heaped on the pale figure inside.
“There is,” said the Englishman. “It is an almost perfect copy.”
Gveld was surprised. In a bartering situation between two dwarves, it would be unheard of for one to admit that his product was less than perfect.
“Almost?” said Gveld. “As in, the Englishman almost survived his meeting with Gveld Horteknut of the Horteknut Seven?”
The human chuckled, his teeth clacking. “I see. You are threatening my life, but there really is no need. I misspoke, don’t you know? The item is, in fact, perfect, but what it needs to be is imperfect.”
Rather than elaborate on this cryptic statement, Lord Teddy took from his pocket a small knife that he habitually used to skin small animals—rabbits and the like. He flicked out a blade that glittered like an icicle and dipped it into the cooler bag.