The human city was called Bergmont. It sat in a valley between two rivers, walls of gray stone thirty feet high, guard towers at regular intervals. Population maybe ten thousand.
We observed it from the forest for three days before Solitär decided to move closer.
"We'll approach from the east," she said, studying the city from our hillside vantage point. "There's a merchant road. Less security than the main gates."
"You want to go inside?"
"I want you to go inside. I'll observe from outside the walls." She glanced at me. "Your mana signature is elven enough. If you don't actively use magic, no one will question your presence."
"What am I looking for?"
"The academy. How they structure education. What they prioritize. How efficient their methods are." She handed me a small leather pouch. "Human currency. Enough to rent a room for a week and buy information."
I took the pouch. "Where did you get this?"
"Dead bandits, mostly. They have no use for it anymore."
We moved at nightfall. Solitär led us through the forest with the same certainty she always had, as if she'd mapped every tree personally. The merchant road appeared after an hour of walking, wide dirt packed hard by wagon wheels.
"Follow the road to the city. Enter at dawn when the gates open. Merchants will be arriving. Join them." Solitär stopped at the forest edge. "I'll be watching. If you need to leave quickly, head north. I'll find you."
"What if something goes wrong?"
"Then handle it. You've learned enough to survive most situations." She stepped back into the shadows. "Go. You're wasting darkness."
The walk to Bergmont took two hours. By the time I reached the gates, the sky was brightening and merchants were already gathering. I joined a group hauling grain, keeping my head down and my mana suppressed.
The guards at the gate barely looked at me. An elf traveling with merchants wasn't unusual enough to warrant attention.
Inside the walls, Bergmont was cramped and loud. Buildings pressed together, streets narrow and winding. The smell hit me first; unwashed bodies, cooking food, animal waste, smoke. Human density concentrated into stone and wood.
I found the academy by following students. They wore robes marked with a circular emblem, chattering excitedly as they walked. The academy itself was a compound of three buildings surrounding a courtyard. Older construction than the rest of the city. Better maintained.
I spent the day observing from a tavern across the street. The pouch Solitär gave me bought me a room, a meal, and the tavern keeper's disinterest. I sat by the window and watched.
Students came and went in groups. Most were young, late teens to early twenties. They practiced basic spells in the courtyard; creating light, moving objects, conjuring water. Instructors corrected their form, adjusted their hand positions, demonstrated proper technique.
It was inefficient. Incredibly inefficient.
The instructors taught by demonstration and repetition. Students copied the movements without understanding the underlying mana flow. They'd repeat the same spell dozens of times, hoping muscle memory would compensate for lack of comprehension.
Some of it worked. Eventually. But the waste was enormous.
I watched a girl spend twenty minutes trying to create a simple light sphere. She gathered too much mana, released it too quickly, and the sphere kept collapsing. The instructor kept telling her to "focus her intent" and "believe in the magic."
Solitär would have laughed.
By evening, I'd seen enough. The academy taught magic like a trade skill; memorization and practice without theory. Students graduated knowing how to cast specific spells but not how to create new ones. It produced competent mages, but not innovative ones.
I left the tavern and started walking north toward the forest.
That's when I noticed them.
Three men, keeping pace with me from about twenty yards back. They weren't subtle about it. One caught my eye and smiled.
I turned down a side street. They followed.
The street emptied into a small square, surrounded by workshops closed for the night. I stopped in the center and turned around.
The three men spread out, blocking the street entrance. They were all armed; short swords, daggers. I guess they were not mages. Just thugs who'd spotted a lone elf and decided she looked like an easy target.
"Evening," the one in the middle said. He was older, scarred, missing teeth. "You're a long way from the woods."
I didn't respond.
"Not talkative? That's fine." He took a step forward. "Hand over your coin and anything else valuable. Do that, and we let you walk away."
I calculated the distances. Three opponents. Enclosed space. No civilians in immediate vicinity. They weren't expecting resistance.
"No," I said.
The leader's smile faded. "Wrong answer."
They attacked simultaneously. The leader came straight at me, sword raised. The other two circled, trying to flank.
I'd been training with Solitär for five years. These men were fast by human standards.
By demon standards, they moved like trees falling.
I sidestepped the leader's strike, redirected his momentum with a hand on his wrist, and sent him stumbling past me. The man on my left swung his dagger. I caught his arm, twisted, and felt something pop in his elbow.
He screamed.
The third man hesitated. Fatal mistake.
I gathered mana—not much, just enough—and released it as kinetic force. He flew backward into the wall with a wet crunch and didn't get up.
The leader had recovered. He came at me again, faster this time, angry. His sword cut through the space where I'd been standing. I was already behind him. A strike to the back of his knee sent him down. Another to the base of his skull put him on his face.
The man with the broken elbow was trying to run. I let him go.
Then I checked the third man against the wall. Still breathing, but unconscious. Probably a concussion. He'd live.
I suppressed my mana again and left the square, heading north. The fight had taken less than thirty seconds. No one had seen it.
At the city's northern edge, I found a section of wall in shadow and climbed it. The stone gave enough purchase for my elf body's strength. I dropped down on the other side and walked into the forest.
Solitär found me an hour later.
"You used magic," she said by way of greeting.
"They attacked me."
"I saw. Inefficient, but adequate." She started walking deeper into the forest. "What did you learn at the academy?"
I told her about the teaching methods, the repetition-based approach, the lack of theoretical foundation. She listened without comment until I finished.
"Predictable," she said. "Human mages teach by passing down what they learned. They rarely question the foundations. It's why their magic stagnates."
"Some of them seemed competent."
"Competence and innovation are different things. Humans innovate despite their teaching methods, not because of them." She glanced at me. "Did you enjoy the fight?"
The question caught me off guard. "Enjoy?"
"You smiled when the third man flew into the wall. I was watching."
Had I smiled? I tried to remember. Maybe. The fight had felt clean. Simple. A problem with a clear solution.
"It was efficient," I said.
"That's not what I asked."
I thought about it while we walked. "I don't know. It didn't bother me. They were trying to kill me. I defended myself."
"And if you'd killed them?"
"Then they'd be dead."
Solitär smiled slightly. "You're adapting well."
We traveled for two more days, moving deeper into less populated territory. On the third day, we encountered them.
Four humans. Mages, judging by their robes and the way mana clustered around them. They were examining something on the ground; spell residue, I realized. Old traces of demon magic that Solitär had left weeks ago.
They noticed us at the same time we noticed them.
The reaction was immediate. Combat stances. Mana gathering. One of them started weaving a spell.
"Demon," the lead mage said. She was middle-aged, confident, powerful. Her mana signature was dense and controlled. "And an elf. Interesting combination."
"We're just passing through," I said.
"A demon and an elf traveling together? You're either her prisoner or her accomplice." The mage's eyes narrowed. "Either way, you chose the wrong territory."
Solitär hadn't moved. She stood perfectly still, watching them with that clinical interest. "You're tracking me."
"For three weeks. You've been observed near human settlements. Killing travelers. We're here to stop it."
"I haven't killed any travelers."
"Liar." The mage released her spell.
It was a binding; magical chains meant to restrict movement. They shot toward Solitär from multiple angles simultaneously.
Solitär moved.
And the chains missed. She was suddenly ten feet to the left, as if she'd never been in the original position.
"I don't lie," Solitär said calmly. "Lying is inefficient."
The other three mages attacked together. Fire, ice, and force; a coordinated assault meant to overwhelm. The temperature in the clearing spiked and dropped simultaneously. The air itself seemed to tear.
Solitär raised one hand.
The spells stopped. Frozen mid-flight like someone had paused reality.
"Adequate coordination," Solitär observed. "But poor execution. You're all using different efficiency ratios. The spells interfere with each other."
She closed her hand.
The frozen spells collapsed inward and detonated. The explosion was massive, throwing up dirt and leaves and scorched air. When it cleared, the four mages were scattered, struggling to stand.
The lead mage was fastest to recover. She gathered mana—more than before, desperation lending speed—and released it as pure destructive force.
Solitär caught it. I don't know how else to describe it. She reached out, grabbed the spell with her bare hand, and crushed it. The mana dissipated like smoke.
"You're wasting my time," Solitär said.
Then she killed them.
Just like that.
The lead mage died first. Solitär moved faster than I could track and touched the woman's forehead. The mage's body went rigid, then collapsed. No blood. And just dead.
The other three tried to run.
They didn't make it ten feet.
Solitär killed them the same way; a touch, a momentary disruption of something vital, and they fell. The entire thing took maybe five seconds.
When it was over, Solitär examined the bodies briefly, checking for anything useful. She took one of their grimoires and a small artifact from the lead mage's belt.
"Their tracking magic was interesting," she said, studying the artifact. "They must have found a way to isolate demon mana signatures over long distances. This device is the key."
I stared at the bodies. Four people who'd woken up this morning alive. Who'd probably had families, students, lives.
"Why did you kill them?" I asked.
"They attacked us."
"You could have disabled them. Like you did with that mage years ago."
"That mage was alone and not tracking us. These four knew where we were and had been following us for weeks. Disabling them would have been temporary. They'd have organized a larger force." She pocketed the artifact. "Killing them was more efficient."
"They thought you were killing travelers."
"They were wrong. I don't kill travelers. I kill people who attack me." She looked at me. "Does this bother you?"
I thought about it. Tried to feel guilt or horror or something. But mostly I just felt nothing. They'd attacked us. Solitär had defended us. The outcome was logical.
"No," I said. "It doesn't bother me."
"Good. Sentiment is inefficient in combat." She started walking. "We should move. They may have backup arriving soon."
We traveled fast for the next week, putting distance between us and Bergmont. Solitär studied the tracking artifact in her spare time, taking it apart piece by piece to understand its construction.
"Clever," she'd mutter.
I didn't think about the dead mages much. They became just another data point. Another lesson in how this world worked.
Power mattered. Efficiency mattered. Sentiment was a luxury you couldn't afford if you wanted to survive.
Five years with Solitär had taught me that.
I was starting to wonder what else it would teach me before we were done.