My mind whirled at a thousand miles an hour as I tried to come to terms with the fact I was locked inside a freestanding cage the size of a small room.

“Bartholomew, my boy, well done getting captured. Here I thought you were out gallivanting somewhere, but instead, you were trying to find a way into the lair of these traffickers,” said a voice to my left.

I looked over to find a young human male in his teens with a thin mustache, sitting on the ground, covered in dirt. “Very funny, Uncle Finneus,” I whispered. “What are you doing here, and where are we?”

The boy winked at me. “Haven’t you figured that out for yourself yet?” he asked.

“Uncle Finneus, I love you, I do. But I just woke up after getting bashed on the head, to find myself in a cage, and the date that I like is nowhere to be found. Can we please not play this game today? Just tell me what’s going on,” I said.

“Ahh, but child, now when it’s the hardest, is when I must press you the most. The answers are right in front of you if you just focus on them. Think about the events that led up to your capture. What happened exactly, and perhaps you can figure out what’s going on from there,” said the boy.

I wanted to reach over and strangle my uncle, so I took a breath to calm myself down and told him about everything that had happened. As I talked about the events that had happened aloud, a growing suspicion began to blossom inside me. “Zara set me up, didn’t she? She’s the one that led me into that trap. She even acted like she didn’t want to go. Why?”

“Hoho, you are starting to perceive the reality of the situation. Now ask your questions?”

I thought about it for a second, then asked, “We aren’t underneath the bakery, are we?”

Uncle Finneus shook his head. “Good guess, but no. We are in the basement of a small warehouse a couple of blocks down the road from the bakery.”

I thought a moment later and asked, “How does Zara fit into all this?”

Uncle Finneus shook his head and in a gentle tone said, “Well, nephew, there are a few reasons for her to be connected to such hideous company. The first and most likely is that she was kidnapped as a child and raised in the organization. With such a life, it would be no surprise if she felt, even if she liked you, that she had no choice in the matter. George is most likely her handler and is using her and other girls to kidnap men, women, and children. Women are often perceived as less of a threat. This helps lower the guard of the victim until her partners arrive to help. Then the group has another person to sell. You of all people now know how that works.”

I swallowed down the lump in my throat. “So how would you recommend I handle this, Uncle? If that is what she is? Does that make her evil?”

Uncle Finneus laughed. “Child, she just got you kidnapped and thrown into a cage, and your first reaction isn’t anger; it's wondering if there is any hope for change within her?” He shook his head. “Bartholomew, there is hope, there is always hope. But the percentage of long-term victims being able to develop a fully conscious free will is low, to say the least. I say all of this so you understand that if there is an opportunity to help her, you know that the road will be very difficult. Of course, that is if she isn’t executed by the authorities for kidnapping and trafficking charges. And even then, one must ask how much culpability she has for the crimes she has carried out even if she was pressured into them. It is not zero.”

We sat for a while there as I thought over what my uncle had said, trying to view the situation from every angle as he had taught me. Hoping to come up with an answer that gave me some sort of optimism. I found none, so I asked my uncle the next question I had on my mind. “How exactly did you get here, Uncle Finneus? And what are your plans for getting out of here?”

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“Ahh,” said Uncle Finneus. “That is a far more pleasant topic. Well, given what you had told me about how you had been approached, and the behavior of George when you first met him, I grew suspicious, so I took it upon myself to track you on your dates. When I saw you get captured, I decided to play the part of a naïve teenage boy with dreams of playing the hero. They ‘knocked me out’ and brought me along, throwing me in the same cage as you. I waited an hour for you to wake up, and here we are.

“As for when we will be escaping, we will save that till we gain more information. Since we are in the belly of the beast, there is no reason for us not to figure out what it has been eating.”

I rolled my eyes. “Uncle Finneus, shouldn’t we be worried about being eaten ourselves if we stay in the ‘belly’ for too long?”

"Hush child, people are approaching," muttered the little boy, who then turned his back on me. I listened, and after a few seconds, I also heard the sound of approaching feet. It sounded like a group of them.

"Child, Zara could be with them, so prepare yourself. Try not to give anything important away if you don't have to. She still does not know who I am, right?" whispered Uncle Finneus, his voice meant only for my ears.

I nodded.

"Good, try and keep it that way," said Uncle Finneus.

The footsteps sounded, and a group of twelve people, along with George and Zara, rounded the corner. When I met Zara's eyes, she shrank away, but when George saw me looking, he smiled and waved. "It's good to see you again, elf. Though you seemed to be doing better the last time I saw you."

"I guess you're the reason I'm in this cage then?" I growled.

George's eyes grew wide in mock horror. "Of course not, that was all the work of your little girlfriend Zara."

He patted Zara on the back, pulling her from where she was trying to hide, and out into the open.

"Why?" was all I could muster.

Zara opened her mouth to answer, but no words came out, so George answered her. "Because I told her to. And this girl knows better than to disobey me. You're going to fetch a pretty penny, elf. A really pretty penny."

"Fuck you," I said.

George laughed and turned back to the other men who had been following him, "Well, gentlemen, you've seen the merchandise, do any of you still doubt that he is a full-blooded elf?"

One of the humans in the back asked, "Does he know any magic?"

George shook his head, "We drew blood from him while he was unconscious, and it turns out that his affinity with nature magic is non-existent. I'm not sure what kind of mutant he is, but he does not appear to have any magic capability to speak of."

"That will significantly lower the price," said another one.

George shook his head again, "It does not appear you understand the long-term benefits of having such an elf. His offspring will most likely not have magic either, making them perhaps some of the best slaves, given how slowly they age and develop."

This caused discussions to break out in the group. I did my best to ignore them, as I believed if I heard what they said, I would not be able to hold myself back and would burn them all into ash. Eventually, George waved goodbye, telling me I would be up for sale tomorrow night, and walked out with the group.

"That went better than I expected," said the little boy from the side.

"Did you recognize any of the faces of the rest of the group?" I asked, still seething from the disrespect with which they treated me.

"Yes, there were a couple of them that are local. But it appears that five of them were from different parts of the Empire. If we are to gather up all of the organization, we are going to need help from the magic society and perhaps even the Praglen Guard."

"Do you have any contacts within the guard you could reach out to?" I asked.

"Yes, we should be fine on that front. The problem is figuring out how to take care of this in the short term. If we miss a root, it can grow into the same tree in a few years. Better to wipe out everything all in one go."

"Uncle Finneus, I'm about to be sold off," I said. "Why don't we just capture George and have Alessandro interrogate him? He sounded like he had a lot of practice in such things."

"That is an idea, Bartholomew. But there are many things that could go wrong if we were to do that. For instance, how often does George have to check in with his handler? If we were to capture him, how quickly would we be able to get information from him versus how quickly would the owner begin to dismantle part of the auction house's organization in order to save himself? It would be a sprint to the finish line, and I do not believe we would be the winners. No, for now, we need to buy time."

"Are you really going to make me go through being sold like some common livestock?" I asked.

"No, sadly that will not work as my disappearance will be as noticed as yours. If George does not notice, I'm sure one of these other prisoners will tell us in order to receive some reward," said Uncle Finneus.

"So, what is the plan then? If we can't stay here and we can't start capturing people?" I asked.

"Nephew, you've forgotten the easiest plan. To escape! If you pay attention to the wind currents down here and you'll notice that even after they've sealed off the entrance, there is still airflow coming in from somewhere. If I had to guess, the door on the far side of the room follows a set of tunnels. Given the faintly putrid scent in the air, and the decreased temperature, I believe those tunnels eventually connect to the sewers. From there, we should be able to find our way out," explained Uncle Finneus.