Love Conquers All

Chapter 7

The first thing they were greeted by was Trouble's worried face, "There you are!" He exclaimed, zipping towards them, not bothering to shield. "What happened? I saw Juniper fly off earlier, I tried to stop her but," he paused and shrugged helplessly.

Holly winced as she suddenly noticed the blood staining his sleeve.

Trouble continued, "Are you two okay? We lost signal, not even Foaly could get through to you."

In a rush of words, they caught Trouble up on what had happened, skipping over a few details.

At the end of it all, Trouble just stared at them bewildered, "This is bad," he said at last, "Still no sign of Butler?"

Artemis shook his head, "No, did you see where Juniper went?"

Trouble grinned, regaining his usual composure, "Sure did, in fact, thanks to some quick thinking by me, I managed to attach a tracker to her, with any luck she won't know until we find her."

Artemis smiled, "Perfect, when we're done with this, she's going to wish she never laid eyes on Artemis Fowl Junior."

The three of them hurried back to the plane, and after pulling up a visual of the tracker, they were off. As they flew, an awkward silence fell between Artemis and Holly while Trouble remained blissfully unaware in the back of the plane.

At last, Holly spoke up, "Arty, are you okay?"

Artemis sighed, "I just feel stupid to have been bested by the love potion so easily. You snapped out of it so quickly, it took me forever."

Holly shook her head, "Don't beat yourself up over that, humans are more susceptible anyway and you did get a hold of yourself eventually. We need you in top shape for when we find Juniper."

Artemis continued to stare ahead with an intense expression, "I knew it was coming though and I still fell for it, I thought, well." He paused, "I'm sorry for everything I did while under the spell."

Holly laughed softly, "Yeah, I know, me too, did you think I'd be mad at you for something out of your control?"

Artemis relaxed visibly, "Yeah, I guess you're right, I just had to be sure."

"Well, don't worry about it, this doesn't change anything."

"Okay."

With the air cleared, the rest of the flight was far more enjoyable. "Hey, we're headed back to Ireland," Artemis suddenly noted.

Holly looked at the tracker and realised they were indeed heading back to Artemis' homeland, "Funny how we always end up back here," she said.

"Yeah, funny." Artemis slowed down slightly, not wanting to actually catch up just yet and give themselves away but when you were piloting an airplane, that was no easy task. After some circling and doubling back, the signal finally settled in one place. "Perfect," Artemis said and started to search for a place to land the plane.

They eventually managed to find a fairly isolated place that wasn't too far from where the sprite apparently was. The three of them left the plane and followed the signal to what appeared to be a clearing. "What do you think? Did she ditch the tracker?" Trouble asked.

Artemis shook his head and scanned the clearing carefully, "It's still moving, more cam foil more likely." After a moment he pointed, "There," he said and sure enough, closer inspection revealed another structure, similar to the one they first encountered.

Holly frowned, that felt like so long ago but it had really only been a day. Wait, a day? That means they only had one more until it was too late. "Let's go then, we'll be prepared this time."

"Let's do this."

Okay, that's all for now, exam week is killing me and I have no more time to write today, sorry.