Uncle Finneus sent Alessandro away after untying him. The rabbit protested, demanding he needed to follow Uncle Finneus around to help in the saving of his wife, but Uncle Finneus would hear none of it. Even going so far as to threaten to tie him back up and lock him in the cupboard until the matter was settled.

“Bartholomew, grab your coat. We will be going out for a bit, and it looks like it will rain this afternoon,” Uncle Finneus said after the rabbit had been cast out.

I went into my room and grabbed an oiled coat to keep dry. Walking out, I asked, “How do we even go about finding this woman? If she is locked away in the auction house somewhere, I don’t see how we could do any better than Alessandro.”

“Bartholomew, you are thinking in too linear a fashion. If we can’t break into the auction house, not that I’m saying I can’t, but even if we couldn’t, we do not need to right now. Instead, we will go about this like adults and uncover what is happening before we run around like a Degoran after its heart has been pulled out.”

“Ok, Uncle Finneus. That makes sense to a certain degree, but what’s our first step then? How are we supposed to uncover anything about the auction house if we don’t go there?” I asked, trying not to sound like a small child.

“You’ll see. Just be patient and pay attention. The best thing you can do for yourself at this moment is to keep your eyes wide open and try to memorize everything that happens from here on out. I had heard rumors about a trafficking group but had never had to opportunity to challenge them. These types are difficult to catch, as slippery as eels, they are. If we are to have any luck on this hunt, we must cast a wide net before cinching it tight. I must say, Bartholomew, I’m growing excited at the thought. It will be a challenging hunt. This job may even be worth the annoyance of helping the rabbit.”

Uncle Finneus grinned, and thick fangs grew out of his mouth. Uncle Finneus brought his hand up to his mouth, making the fangs disappear. “Oh my, I am excited. Anyway, come along, Bartholomew, let’s go. We’re off to have a drink.”

And off we went. Outside the door, Uncle Finneus turned and locked the entrance. When he turned back to the street, he had become a middle-aged human with pale skin, blue eyes, and balding black hair. Even his figure was different; I don’t know how he did it, but Uncle Finneus looked to have gained at least fifty pounds and lost three inches.

I stared at him in fascination. “Do you think you could teach me magic like that?”

“I fear this is a unique type of magic. I’ve tried to teach more than ten other individuals over the years, but the best they could do was change the shape of their faces. No, Bartholomew, best to focus on magic you have talent for. I think there are not more than three people in the world who have more talent in fire magic than you. There is no reason to waste such a gift by trying to learn other magics that are pointless in the face of raw flame.”

“I get that. Still, being able to adjust my face even a little bit could be really helpful in situations I’m trying to hide myself,” I said.

“How about this, nephew? If you haven’t gotten me killed by this time next year, I’ll try and teach you a single spell. If you can manage using it successfully, we’ll talk about the rest later.”

I nodded my head, realizing this was the best I could hope for. “Ok. Fair enough, Uncle Finneus.”

We moved down the busy street of Golden Trout Lane, heading south along the boardwalk. Uncle Finneus looked bored as he walked along, while I couldn’t help but glance around, feeling suspicious of everyone we passed on the busy street.

“If you keep looking around like that, I’m going to send you packing. Stop drawing attention to yourself and walk as you do every morning. Use a bored gaze and look around like you're taking in the environment. If you keep yanking your head around, it is bound to pop off from all the pressure.”

I tried to follow his advice, but as I focused, my whole manner seemed to become awkward and disjointed. My leg stopped moving in concert with my arms, and I couldn’t figure out how to make it go back to normal. I looked down at my hands and realized one of them was a fist, and the other an open palm. I thought about it but couldn’t decide what was the right way, palm open or shut? Should I blink once every thirty seconds or once every ten?

There was a loud thwack as Uncle Finneus slapped me in the back of the head, making me stumble forward a few paces. “Stop thinking so much and relax. We haven’t even started our investigation. There’s no need to act like a babe on his first flight.”

“Easy for you to say. How many hundreds of years have you been doing this kind of work?” I muttered, rubbing the back of my head.

My uncle laughed. “Fair enough, Bartholomew. Fair enough. As for work? No. This is just something to stave off boredom. When you get to my age, you’ll understand what I’m talking about.”

“How old do I need to be to understand then?” I asked.

“I have far too much of a head start for you ever to catch up.”

The nonsensical comments did help me relax, and we continued on our walk in silence. This time I felt far more natural than earlier. We finished our merry jaunt by turning into a small bar with a creaking wooden sign that was blowing in the wind. I glanced up at the sign, reading ‘The Drunken Wizard.’ It was tacky, and the paint was falling off, which was weird, as it would have been much more efficient to just dye the wood.

I was reminded of the dwarven camp when I opened the door. The smell was not as strong, but so similar it amazed me; it was the smell of piss, beer, and body odor. How could two places that looked so different smell the same? Looking around at the dirty patrons of the bar, I retracted my earlier thought. They were very similar in hygiene to the dwarves.

Uncle Finneus walked up to the long wooden bar. Behind the bar was an old human bartender with a long white beard who stood cleaning a cup. I must note that he was cleaning said cup with his beard. "Romulus, I want to have a party. Could you order me a barrel of Troll Piss?" asked Uncle Finneus.

The bartender eyed us both suspiciously before signaling with his eyes for us to follow him. He opened up a door at the back and waved us in, shutting the door behind us without following. I opened my mouth to speak, but Uncle Finneus placed a finger to his lips.

The room we entered was less of a room and more of a dead end corridor. Along the wall on either side were six tapestries of different colors: red, blue, green, yellow, black, and purple. Uncle Finneus walked up to the red tapestry and pulled it aside. Behind the tapestry was a swirling hole covered in mist. Uncle Finneus placed his hand on the portal as if to check something, before waving me over. Without waiting, he entered the portal, disappearing onto the other side. Worried about missing something interesting, I rushed into the portal after him.

The other side was dark and shadowed. I reached for my magic, and a small fire appeared on my palm. I tossed the fire into the air and expanded it. It was then I spotted Uncle Finneus. He was seated at a large wooden table. He turned to me, "Bartholomew, come take a seat. Our host should be arriving soon."

I walked over and sat beside my uncle. "What are we doing here, Uncle Finneus?"

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My uncle, who had mostly returned to his original form, tapped his claws against the wooden table. "We are looking to see what information is available about this auction house. No reason to do the legwork if someone else has done it already."

"Ahh, that makes sense. How much do these things usually cost?"

"You’ll see in a second. Now hush, someone is coming," Uncle Finneus said.

I looked around and listened but couldn’t find whatever stimuli had alerted him to an intruder. It took another five seconds before I caught sight of the figure walking up to my left.

"What brings you here, Burgeon? Having trouble with your information network of vagrants? To think you would come to your competition for help," said the figure.

Uncle Finneus ignored the remark and went right to business. "I’m looking for what information you have on the backdoor dealings of the auction house, ‘Catherine’s Motley Treasures.’ According to a client, they kidnapped her child and sold him to one of the tribes in the north. By some miracle, they were able to track down the child, but by the time they reached the kid, he had already died of illness. My client wants to make sure this doesn’t happen to someone else’s little boy."

I was confused by the lie but tried not to show it on my face. Instead, I turned to observe the dark-cloaked figure that had gotten so close without my noticing. I couldn’t make out much, only that he was a small man, maybe even too small to be a human, and rail-thin, as the cloak looked like it was hanging on a coat rack. Other than an entirely average voice, there was nothing I could make out.

"Catherine’s Motley Treasures is a reputable auction house that has even done dealing with us above ground. Such horrible business dealings would have led to their collapse years ago. What makes you think we have the information you’re searching for?" replied the cloaked man.

"Quit dancing around the subject and name your price. The only reason I haven’t beaten the information out of you like I did your grandfather, is because your mother was a nice person. Get on with it, Karl, or I will," snapped my uncle.

The cloaked man coughed and took a half step back. "This is sensitive information, and powerful people are connected to the auction house. I’ll sell it for no less than 200 gold coins and a favor."

Uncle Finneus replied, "You could not afford a bought favor from me. I’ll give you 500 for the lot of it."

The cloaked man remained silent, seemingly debating with himself over whether to accept the deal. After a while, he nodded. "I can do that."

From the small bag at his waist, Uncle Finneus withdrew a large bag of gold coins that chimed together merrily as he waved it, then slid it across the table. The cloaked man, for his part, waved to the darkness. A few minutes later, a figure dressed in the same black cloak as Karl handed the man a folder, which Karl set on the table. He then gathered up the bag of gold and left without uttering another word.

I turned towards Uncle Finneus to ask about the cloaked man, but he waved me to silence, pointing towards his eyes and gesturing to the large cavern.

I cocked my head, confused, it took a second before I realized what he meant: 'People were watching us.'

I nodded my head, and Uncle Finneus beamed a smile at me. He grabbed the folder, and we retreated into the portal, returning to the filthy bar and its disgusting residents. I didn’t speak the whole way home, and even then, I waited until I had made coffee, and we were sipping it before I began asking my questions. “Who was the man in the cloak? I’m guessing he’s the leader of that network-gathering company?”

“Not a bad guess, Bartholomew. He is the son of the leader of the organization and the would-be heir to that throne. Not a bad kid, though he is a bit arrogant.”

“You haven’t opened the folder yet; I thought this information was important?”

Uncle Finneus waved a hand, “This isn’t just about the information, and I doubt there will be anything worth reading in here. That trip was to draw out the watchers. Bartog, the father of Karl who we saw today, will start gathering information on the auction and our case. This will lead to a large-scale inquiry. Someone will talk, and our quarry will start hearing rumors. The auction house will become scared that the inquiry will lead to the discovery of their trafficking deals. That fear will cause them to mobilize their men to hide the slaves somewhere else within the city. Or they will try smuggling the cargo out into the countryside. It will make it far more difficult for them to sell the slaves hiding them in the countryside, but they will make that choice if they are worried about their security. But either way, that movement will allow us to scout and observe how they move their products. If, by the off chance they don’t move the trafficked creatures, well, we’ll just have to try some other methods.”

So saying, Uncle Finneus tossed the folder over to me. “Why don’t you look through that and see if you can learn a little more about what’s going on? I’m going out for a bit. Write down your questions on notes so you don’t forget anything. And make sure you take the time to note down all the details you find inside the folder. Look through it and see if you can find any discrepancies in the information, such things could give me could help us figure out if the agency hid any information from us. Who knows, they could be in on the business as well.”

I swallowed, realizing the importance of the task Uncle Finneus had set before me. Uncle Finneus laughed, “Look at your face. Relax, it is not your job to find the problems. Just look through the folder and see if something stands out to you. I’m not expecting you to learn much. Simply follow some of the steps I’ve talked about and see if you can gather more information from the folder than seems readily apparent. Ok?”

“Ok, Uncle Finneus,” I said, trying to relax.

He nodded his head marking the end of the topic. “I’ll see you in a bit,” he said.

And with that, out the door, he went. To where, I have no idea.

I glanced over at the folder. It looked far thicker now than when Uncle Finneus was holding it. I decided that it would be better to go through the information with food, rather than be interrupted by the grumblings of my stomach as I read. My mother tried teaching me how to cook, but it didn’t stick. She used to say that ‘if I was given a fruit and told to cut it up, I’d serve it burnt.’

Given that there was a café just down the road, I decided to go down the street and grab some food. As I opened the door, I froze. I thought back to the discussion I had with Uncle Finneus about people watching me and turned back to look at the folder. Thinking to myself, ‘What if someone decided to steal the folder while I was gone?’ Who knew what important information could be in those documents? And it's not like we could go back and ask for the information again. If someone took it, that information would be lost to me forever.

I walked over, grabbed the documents, and began to think about where I should hide them. I tried a few places, under my bed, inside Uncle Finneus’s dresser, and behind the couch, but none of the hiding spots gave me a sense of security. If someone came in and ransacked the place, they would be able to find it without much hassle. After all, there were search spells for such things. At least I thought there were, my traditional magical education had been a bit lax. Given I was an elf who used flames, my magical teachers were not interested in teaching me much of anything.

After thinking for a moment, I decided to strap the folder to my chest using a thin rope I grabbed from my uncle’s office. In retrospect, I am aware that I probably could have just read the folder and then gone for food. But I was too far into the scenario to give up just like that. So, with two layers of clothes to hide the bulk of the folder, and feeling uncomfortable, I made my way out the door, locking it behind me.

Yesterday, I would have told someone that I lived in a great neighborhood. A place where everyone was friendly. A place where you didn’t have to worry about security. When I walked outside with the folder strapped to my chest, all I saw were spies and thieves. I was surrounded by untrustworthy people on all sides.

The walk to the café was to have been one of the longest of my life. I tried to walk myself through my uncle’s advice from this morning to calm myself, but it didn’t help. It was his presence and his attitude that made me relax, not his words. By the time I arrived at the café, I was shaking in excitement. So much so that sparks of fire were jumping between my fingers. My fingers didn’t catch on fire, as the flame was playing around. It just wanted to move and express itself as it fed off of my excitement.

I stepped into the cafe, and the bell above the door jingled. The pretty waitress Zara turned and seemed to recognize me, waving in a familiar way. I smiled back, then found a seat in the back corner, signaling for a menu.

“Hello, welcome. How can we help you today? Do you want to start with anything to drink?” asked Zara.

“Ahh, hello. Uh, could I get some water? That would be good to start.”

The girl smiled at me, “OK, sounds good. I think I saw you here at breakfast talking to George. Are you friends with him?”

I smiled and ran a hand through my hair, “Yeah, that was me. I wouldn’t say we were friends; he just came over and introduced himself. Your name is Zara, right?”

“Yep, that’s me. What’s your name?” she asked.

“I’m Bartholomew. I just moved to the city to live with my uncle. He lives just a little bit down the road,” I replied.

Zara smiled and nodded, “Welcome to the city. I hope you’ve gotten situated here. Have you met many new people?”

I smiled back, happy to find that Zara was as nice as she was pretty. “Not really, I met some dwarves a few weeks ago. They were very nice and promised to give me a hand if I ever needed it, but they weren’t my cup of tea. They were very gruff and didn’t have the best body awareness. To put it simply, they smelled.”

Zara laughed, “Yeah, I’ve heard some stories. It can get bad, especially during the spring. At least, that’s what I’ve been told. What about your uncle? You said you lived with him, right? Have you not met people through him, people that, you know, will check up on you?”

I frowned, “Not really. My uncle is an eccentric person. Sometimes I think he’s a hermit. The people who have come to his door since I’ve been living with him have been weird to the very last.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. How about I show you around the city this evening? I’m off work in the next two hours, and after that, I’d be happy to show you some of the cool places within the city, maybe you can meet some new people too. When my brother and I first moved here, someone did the same for me. It’s how I ended up working for John.”

“John?” I asked.

“Yeah, he was the man that helped settle us here in Glueburn. It was through him that we met Mr. George.”

The information didn’t quite line up with what Mr. George had told me earlier that morning, but I didn’t say anything, why ruin a good conversation with questions after all?

“Oh, I see. That really would be amazing though if you could show me around the city tonight. You’ve made my day, honestly. I don’t know how to thank you.” I was practically gushing.

Zara smiled and waved the notebook in her hand in front of me, “Let's start with what you want to eat for lunch first, then we’ll see what happens later.”