“He wasn’t this nice at all, the last time I was here.” Said Alessandro in response to my cordial greeting. “I don’t think Finneus pay’s his butler enough. Gabriela look at him, see how he’s scowling at me. Do you see? It seems that hiring good people is hard, even for the legendary Finneus Burgeon.”

It must be noted that the ugly little rabbit rolled his eyes when saying the word ‘legendary’ and kept glancing over at his wife to see how she would react to his comments. While I was over his nonsense; Gabriela laughed. “Ale be nice. He helped save my life. Just because he is not perfect at his job, does not give you a reason to be rude.”

“Uncle Finneus,” I said with forced calmness. “Should have the tea ready by now if you would like to come in?” I said, opening the door wide for them to enter.

“See what I mean Gabriela, look at the way he stares at me. I bet he dreams of wrapping his weak hands around my neck. I’d like to see you try little Butler. You wouldn’t even have this job if it wasn’t for your uncle hiring you. If I were you, I’d go back to your little jungle and pick fruits. Being a butler is probably too much for you.” Sneered the rabbit.

“Alessandro.” Snapped the woman, slapping him upside the head. “Too far.”

I couldn’t ignore that provocation, “For last time you stupid fucking rabbit. I do not work here; I am just living here.”

My exhalation was made of steam, I was so over this creature acting as if I wasn’t better than him in every way. The rabbit laughed in response, which he then cut off short when he saw the look in his wife’s eye. “Alright, that was too much, sorry about that nephew of Finneus. It was all in good fun.”

I let out a sigh and led them into the study, “Take a seat anywhere.” I said, “I’m going to go check on my uncle in the kitchen.”

Walking away I heard what sounded like Gabriela scolding the rabbit which made me feel a little better, but only a little. Uncle Finneus was pouring tea when I walked in.

“The prick and Gabriela are sitting in the study right now,” I said without preamble.

Uncle Finneus chuckled. “I see that Alessandro has already been working his magic.”

I sat down on one of the countertops and shook my head, “In all honesty Uncle Finneus, how has he not been killed yet? I have half the mind to try and burn him after only meeting him twice.”

“Many have tried Bartholomew, but at the end of the day, Alessandro is a very competent lightning mage. He must have had to call the magic society tens of times to get rid of the bodies of his would-be assassins. Enough of this chitchat. Come along. I have many questions for both of them.”

Together, with the tray of tea we walked back into the study. As soon as we crossed the doorway, Gabriela who had been whispering to Alessandro, stood up and offered a deep bow. “I mentioned it to your nephew earlier, but I’d like to thank you from the bottom of my heart for saving me. Given what we all know about the situation, I cannot but dread to think what could have happened to me if you had not been there. You have my sincerest gratitude Mr. Burgeon.”

“You are most welcome Gabriela. And do not forget that it was your husband who hired us and covered up the debt of a favor to pay for that rescue. But let's not worry about such matters right now for I believe we have much to talk about.” Replied my uncle.

At this, the rabbit looked confused, “I thought you sent for us to make me pay off my debt now. What do you want to talk about?”

Uncle Finneus spread his hands out, “Why everything involving this trafficking case of course. Saving your wife was only the beginning. Who knows what could happen if we leave such an organization alone? You do not let a brood of vipers prepare for war in the dark. If that happens maybe even the Magic Society would not be able to handle the attack.

No, Alessandro. If only to keep your wife safe, we must go on the offensive and bring down this organization as soon as possible. Who knows, they have been able to put tails on both of you already.”

Alessandro snorted a laugh, “You think someone could tail us and not be caught? You forget who you’re talking to.”

“Is that the same person whose body made a dent in my wall after I punted him into it?” Uncle Finneus asked pointing to the still half-destroyed wall.

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“Fuck off Finneus.” Said the rabbit.

Uncle Finneus had until this moment been standing, took a seat in his usual chair facing the front door. “It’s neither here nor there Alessandro, but what I would like to discuss is how the auction house first became a point of interest for the Magic Society. As well as who was involved in the original mission. I did not ask this from you earlier Alessandro as I doubt you even knew. And we were short on time anyway. But now that we have a little wiggle room, we need to discuss how you were captured, Gabriela. What exactly happened? For that matter, Alessandro, what was your mission here in Glueburn? When you first came to ask for help, you mentioned you also had a mission.”

The rabbit sniffed, “I do not see how that would be relevant to this case. The Society believes in keeping these missions secret for a reason. If we told everyone what we were doing, the world would be in chaos from fear.”

Uncle Finneus opened his mouth, but Gabriela beat him to the punch. “Ale quit being a prick and tell the elf. It's not like it's that important and it could be relevant to what is going on. He saved my life the least you could do is help bring down these bastards.”

The rabbit sniffed, “But, ugh, fine. The society had heard that one of its ex-members had been murdered over a political row. A human by the name of Arbutus Bagmun. He wasn’t a very powerful wizard even in his prime, but he did make a lot of friends. When the higher-ups heard he died suddenly, they sent me to figure out what happened. I arrived and found that the death had been hushed up by the powers at be within Glueburn. According to the information I was given, the investigators and guards were ordered to rule it a suicide. The case was closed by the time I arrived, and I had to spend the first month threatening people and knocking heads around to even gather the smallest of evidence of what had happened. Left alone what I had to do to get the memory stones of the crime scene.”

“What did the crime scene look like? Did they follow protocol enough to still have memory crystals of the scene stored away?” asked Uncle Finneus, tapping his finger on the arm of the chair.

The rabbit rolled his eyes, “If you’d let me finish, I was going to tell you that they destroyed all evidence. The only information I was able to gather was the eyewitness testimony of the investigators themselves under duress. I took the information the five of them had said and pieced them together to draw some sort of picture of what had happened.”

Allesandro looked around, apparently impressed that all the attention of the room was on him. He winked at his wife, then snapped his fingers creating a picture of the human in midair.

“According to his wife, Arbutus was alone when she left him that morning.” Said Alessandro.

In the magic picture, an older, overweight gentleman sat down at the table that had already been created by the magic and began to eat a meal of lightning that had been placed before him by the rabbit. Arbutus at least in the rabbit’s rendering was a balding man who had a kind yet intelligent face. His look could have been pulled directly from ten books I had read about the human nobles.

With all eyes focused on the screen, Alessandro kept speaking, “Again, according to his wife, he was supposedly at home for the day, after taking off work. While Arbutus had been retired, he had been doing some local policy work, editing drafts of laws, advising the Governing body, that sort of thing. Anyway, the wife leaves the house with him sitting in his robe at the kitchen table eating breakfast. When she returns from brunch, Arbutus is hanging from the chandelier with a red cord wrapped around his neck. There’s a note on the table next to his half-eaten breakfast telling his wife that he loved her, and he was sorry.”

Allesandro took a sip of his coffee and sighed. “Arbutus’s old lady was the only one I didn’t have to threaten to get her to speak. She got emotional just knowing that someone was investigating the death of her husband. No one had been able to convince her that her husband would kill himself. She even tried to bribe me with a hundred gold pieces to continue investigating. The disrespect. As if I couldn’t do my job without some other reimbursement than what the Society offers me. I am a wizard, not a union plumber.”

“Honey…” said Gabriela, a hand on his shoulder.

It looked like the rabbit blushed. Then again, I am not sure that rabbits can do that. In an attempt to recover his bravado, Alessandro puffed out his chest and continued. “Ah, well, the wife walked me through how the scene looked when she had made it back to the house after brunch. According to her, they do not have a wait staff, so absolutely no one was home. There was no sign of forced entry, not that there was much security to be forced. On top of that, she talked about how they had been planning a vacation to the southern isles of Alderath. A place Arbutus used to love because it reminded him how grand the world could be. The floating gardens were his favorite. The wife talked about such nonsense for a while, but at the end of it all, she gave good reasons for the man to have not committed suicide.

Anyway, according to investigators who were at the scene and performed a perfunctory investigation, the man appeared in good health and mind, his financials were in order, and with the Magic Society’s retirement plan, he was going to enjoy his later years in relative luxury. It was also interesting to note that while they tried to perform a playback spell, they were unable to see anything from the last twelve hours. However, the police were unable to find the charm that was stopping them from seeing the memory. Overall, from the conversations I’ve had with the investigators and the wife, there was no real reason for him committing suicide. I’d go so far as to say that the possibility of him committing suicide is close to zero percent, especially given that he was also investigating someone on the ruling council for fraud.”