The Fowl Twins: Chapters 11–14

A tad puerile, certainly, but Myles had been five when he came up with it.

It was true that the duke had facilitated the containment of the Fowl Twins and their fairy friends, but now she felt that if she returned to ACRONYM with the creatures in tow, she might be able to salvage something of her reputation and her career after the Amsterdam debacle.

In fact, the church had contributed billions of dollars to the organization's coffers with the stipulation that it be represented at every level.

But vagueness was only a mild niggle on the duke's conscience that would evaporate by day's end.

For it is a universal truth that corporations do not like to simply abandon expensive equipment, and, in spite of their client's wishes, they will attempt to retrieve any parts that are lost, stolen, or jettisoned for R&R—that being repair and recycling.

Due to a combination of its particular positioning on the southern tip of the Scilly Isles, the prevailing winds, and the unusually high temperature of the land mass itself, St. George was shrouded in ethereal concentric rings of fog for an average of two hundred days per year, and this was one of those days.

This was on what was known, in keeping with the island's dragon motif, as the Spine, a curved and knobby ridge set back from the western cliffs.

This spiel seemed to send Myles over the emotional edge.

He laughed with bitter contempt.

Lord Teddy had to own the fact that he himself could certainly be that callous when the occasion demanded it, and often when it didn’t.

The little chap has gumption. He is prepared to do whatever it takes to survive and work on this project.

It would seem that the lure of immortality had been too much for Myles Fowl to resist, for, after he had in effect murdered the small blue creature, there was a snatch of garbled back-and-forth between the two brothers that culminated in some kind of clumsy attempt at a grapple, which ended with the twins bumping wrists.

The Bleedham-Dryes were obviously very fond of heraldry, as Myles had seen half a dozen of these ornate crests dotted around the manor already.

Lord Teddy lit his Monte Cristo with a taper and took several puffs, rotating the cigar for an even burn.

“That’s absolutely correct. From the nursery we are taught to repress our feelings, don’t you know? Decorum semper. Propriety at all times.”

Bleedham-Drye had partially overcome St. George's incipient dampness with powerful dehumidifiers that droned in every corner like angry old men, but still the island insinuated its damp tendrils through cracks in the masonry.

Bleedham-Drye had partially overcome St. George's incipient dampness with powerful dehumidifiers that droned in every corner like angry old men, but still the island insinuated its damp tendrils through cracks in the masonry.

“Don’t tell me you feel sorry for this beast? Perhaps you are not the stalwart I took you for.”

Doctors, shamans, and crackpots. Charlatans, the lot of them. I was coated in potions and drained by leeches. Naturally, nothing worked.

“You don’t say?” said the duke, a little tipsy now and growing churlish. “That is the very definition of useless information.”

Myles fished one of the duke’s alligator slippers from under a divan.

And then, realizing that this was perhaps not the time for petulant dillydallying, he dressed and hurried from the room at medium hustle so as not to trip over his own toes.

For a supposed scientist, the duke’s methods are quite cavalier, thought Myles.

Whistle Blower stretched out in the crook of his arms and burbled as though he were taking a nap in a beachside hammock and not at the center of a gothic scenario involving a vertiginous altitude and a murderous duke in his swimming costume, with a backdrop of all the best nature had to offer.

He also knew that he only had two choices regarding which way he could go, those choices being up or down, and so he talked to the duke to buy himself a few paltry seconds.

What did occur was that he had a sword in his hand and the fairy’s gossamer wings were well within the reach of his elongated arms.

It could be pointed out, perhaps somewhat cruelly, that Beckett and his intrepid comrades had finally lived up to their chosen group name:
The Regrettables.

This was step one in his audacious plan to hoodwink the duke and save the Regrettables, for, in fact, ye of little faith, it was never Myles’s intention to betray his twin.

This was step one in his audacious plan to hoodwink the duke and save the Regrettables, for, in fact, ye of little faith, it was never Myles’s intention to betray his twin.

The current number one was his plot to steal an Egyptian pyramid during an eclipse using only a revolutionary system of pneumatic levers and some double-sided tape.

Fast-forward seventeen hours minus five seconds, and we find the so-called Regrettables clustered at the edge of St. George’s precipice.

But not having magic did rankle.

Quit it, she told her brain. Think of something useful.
But in spite of Lazuli’s admonition, her mind focused on her unfair lack of magic and the orange glow intensified, seeming to color her actual vision.

Lazuli felt the orangeness emanating from her in an irresistible wave.

Under normal circumstances, the inflamed duke would be a terrible sight to behold, but, on this occasion, Teddy’s frizzled hair resembled brittle cotton candy, his soaked swimming costume was more comical than imposing, and his vocal cords, dehydrated from his misadventure with the eels, had elevated his baritone to a far higher pitch.

Beckett was about to haul himself and the semi- catatonic Myles over the muddy rim when he cocked his head to one side and listened to a wave crash against the nearby shore.

When you have an interval in your bouts of illness, perhaps we should drill down into what happened.

Lazuli flashed on a hokey human movie she had always loved, and, with a wry grin, said, “I’ll bloody well walk out of here.”

And now, my boy...thought Teddy, flexing his fingers in the controller mitts, activating literally hundreds of electronic death/gardening/cleaning machines, including dozens of his own construction—little steampunk fellows with tommy guns attached to their arms, which Ishi Myishi had described as delightful anachronisms.

And Teddy was prepared to pound a good chunk of his own island with ordnance to ensure that Myles Fowl and his merry gang were no more.