There is always a use for everything, Victor had told him. Even pain.

Holly winked. 'Do I look like a fly boy to you, Fowl?' Artemis had to admit that she didn't. Captain Short was extremely pretty in a dangerous sort of way. Black-widow pretty. Artemis was expecting puberty to hit in approximately eight months, and he suspected that at that point he would look at Holly in a different light. It was probably just as well that she was eighty years old.

Look!" said Foaly, pointing with some urgency into the vast steel-gray gloom, "Someone who cares!

Of course. Opal is toying with our emotions for her own gratification. Nothing more. She wishes to place herself in a position of power, emotionally.

We lost the crickets," she said. "Even you can't make that sound tough." ..."I am Butler," he said with a straight-face. "Everything I say sounds tough. Now, get out of the lake, fairy.

I don't suppose you would consider peaceful surrender?

What's that supposed to mean? A wolf's head on a stick. Big wolf barbecue tonight? Bring your own wolf?