We left the cave three days after our agreement.
Solitär simply showed up at dawn, examined my makeshift shelter with mild amusement, and said, "We're leaving."
"Where are we going?"
"Away from here. This area is too isolated for proper study."
I grabbed the few things I'd accumulated. A sharp rock I'd been using as a tool. The stick that had become my staff. Solitär watched me with that same clinical interest she'd shown at the lake.
"You won't need any of that," she said.
"I might."
"You won't." But she didn't stop me from bringing them.
The forest swallowed us within an hour. Solitär moved through it like she'd walked these paths a thousand times, never hesitating at forks or clearings.
I struggled to keep up at first. My elf body was stronger and faster than my human one had been, but I still thought like someone who'd spent months bedridden.
"You're adapting slowly," Solitär observed without looking back.
"It's been three months."
"For an elf, three months is nothing. You should be moving like you were born in that body by now."
"Maybe I need more time."
"Time isn't the issue. Acceptance is." She paused at a stream, kneeling to examine the water. "You're still thinking of yourself as your past self wearing an elf's skin. Until you stop doing that, you'll remain clumsy."
I wanted to argue but couldn't. She was right.
We walked for hours. The terrain changed gradually from dense forest to more open woodland. The trees here were enormous, their trunks wider than cars. Some had hollow spaces at their bases large enough to shelter in.
"Tell me what you know about magic," Solitär said suddenly.
"Nothing. I didn't have magic where I'm from."
"But you have theories. Humans always have theories."
I thought about it while navigating around a fallen log. "Energy manipulation, I guess. Converting one form of energy to another. Following certain rules or laws."
"Interesting. Continue."
"If magic exists, it probably has limitations. Conservation of energy. Efficiency losses. Maybe it requires fuel or creates waste."
Solitär glanced back at me, and for the first time, she looked genuinely pleased. "Not bad. Primitive, but the foundation is sound."
"So I'm right?"
"You're half right, which is better than most mages achieve in their first century." She stopped walking and turned to face me fully. "Magic is mana manipulation. Mana is... not energy, exactly, but close enough for your framework. It exists in all living things and the world itself. Mages learn to shape it, direct it, transform it into phenomena."
"Like spells."
"Yes. Though that word implies more structure than actually exists." She held up her hand, and a small flame appeared above her palm. It didn't flicker like normal fire. It burned perfectly still. "This is fire magic. Basic. Every apprentice mage learns it. What makes it effective isn't the fire itself, but the efficiency of mana conversion."
The flame vanished.
"How much mana did that use?" I asked.
"Less than the ambient mana I absorbed while creating it." Her expression shifted to something that might have been a smile. "Demons don't waste mana. Humans do. Constantly. That's why we're stronger."
"Is it just efficiency? Or is there something else?"
"Walk. I'll explain as we go."
The lesson continued for miles. Solitär talked about mana like a mathematician discussing equations. There was no mysticism in her explanation.
Mana flowed through everything. Living beings generated it naturally. The environment contained it in varying densities. Mages learned to sense it, absorb it, and reshape it into specific forms. The process had inefficiencies that varied by individual and technique.
"Humans add emotion to their magic," Solitär said. "They believe it makes them stronger. But the truth is it doesn't. It just makes them wasteful."
"What about demons?"
"We strip emotion out. Magic is a tool. Tools work better when handled precisely."
"And elves?"
She was quiet for a moment. "Elves live long enough to refine technique through repetition. They achieve efficiency through time rather than understanding. It works, but it's slower."
We stopped for the night in a clearing. Solitär didn't sleep, or at least she didn't seem to. She sat against a tree and watched the stars while I tried to figure out if I needed sleep. My body didn't feel tired, but my mind was exhausted.
I slept anyway. When I woke, Solitär was examining a flower that had bloomed near where I'd been lying.
"Your mana leaked while you slept," she said. "Enough to accelerate growth in the immediate area."
I looked around. The grass under me was slightly taller than the surrounding vegetation. "Is that bad?"
"It's inefficient. And it leaves traces. Anyone with decent mana sense could track you."
"Can you teach me to stop it?"
"Eventually. But first you need to understand what mana is. Controlling it comes after."
The next three weeks followed the same pattern. We walked. Solitär asked questions. I answered. She never corrected me directly, just smiled when I got something wrong and moved on to the next question.
"How long do elves live?"
"I don't know. A long time?"
Small smile. Next question.
"What's the difference between a spell and mana manipulation?"
"Structure versus freeform?"
"Closer. Continue."
"Spells are... formalized? Like following a recipe. Manipulation is more intuitive?"
"Adequate."
"Why do demons have horns?"
"Evolutionary advantage. They channel mana more efficiently through physical structures. Next."
"Wait, really?"
She didn't answer. Just kept walking.
I started to understand that Solitär wasn't teaching me magic. She was teaching me how to think about magic. Every question was a test. Every answer I gave revealed something about how my mind worked, what assumptions I carried from my old world.
She was measuring me.
One evening, we encountered another traveler. A human man, middle-aged, carrying a staff with a crystal embedded in the top. He saw us and immediately tensed.
"Demon," he said, raising his staff.
Solitär didn't move. "Mage."
"What are you doing this far south?"
"Walking. What are you doing?"
"Hunting demons." His eyes flicked to me. "Is the elf your prisoner?"
"Disciple," Solitär corrected.
The mage's expression hardened. "Demons don't take disciples."
"I do."
He started gathering mana. I could feel it now, after weeks of Solitär's explanations. The air grew heavy with potential energy, crackling at the edges of perception.
"Observe," Solitär said quietly to me. "Watch how he gathers mana."
"Shouldn't we—"
"Be quiet. Watch."
The mage released a bolt of lightning. It arced toward Solitär, bright and violent. She moved her hand slightly, and the lightning bent around her, scorching the ground to her left.
"Wasteful," she said. "You gathered three times the mana needed for that spell. And your projection was unfocused. Even if it had hit, most of the energy would have dispersed into the environment."
The mage gathered more mana. Faster this time. Desperate.
Solitär was faster.
I didn't see what she did. One moment the mage was preparing another attack. The next, he was on the ground, his staff shattered, and gasping for air.
"Your mana circulation is disrupted," Solitär informed him. "It will return to normal in a few hours. I suggest you use that time to reconsider your approach to magic."
She stepped over him and continued walking. I hesitated, looking at the fallen mage, then hurried after her.
"You didn't kill him," I said when I caught up.
"Killing him would have been wasteful. He provided a better lesson alive."
"What lesson?"
"Did you watch his mana flow?"
"Yes."
"What did you notice?"
I thought back to those few seconds before the lightning strike. "It was... messy. Like water being forced through too many pipes at once."
"Good. That's human magic. Powerful, but inefficient. They compensate with volume rather than precision." She glanced at me. "You'll learn both methods. Then you'll understand why one is superior."
"Both? You'll teach me human magic too?"
"You need context to understand efficiency. And you need to know how your enemies think."
"Enemies?"
Solitär's smile was thin. "Everyone is a potential enemy, Mara. That's the first real lesson."
We walked until we reached the edge of the forest. Beyond it, I could see rolling hills and, in the far distance, what might have been mountains.
"Tomorrow, you'll try to sense mana deliberately," Solitär said. "Not just observe it passively. You'll fail. But the failure will teach you more than success would."
"How do you know I'll fail?"
"Because everyone fails the first time. Demons, humans, elves. The difference is what you do after failing." She looked at me with those calm purple eyes. "Demons measure. We observe the failure, analyze it, and adjust. Humans feel. They get frustrated, emotional, erratic. Elves wait. They try again in a decade or two."
"What should I do?"
"Whatever your nature dictates. I'm not here to change what you are. I'm here to see what you become with knowledge."
That night, I tried to sense mana anyway. I sat cross-legged in the grass, closed my eyes, and focused on the feeling I'd noticed during the fight. The weight in the air. The pressure of potential.
Nothing happened.
I tried for an hour. Then two. Solitär watched without comment, sitting against a tree like a statue.
Finally, I gave up and lay back in the grass, staring at the two moons.
"I felt something during the fight," I said. "But now there's nothing."
"You felt my mana and the human's mana. Large amounts and actively flowing. That's like noticing a waterfall while standing next to it." Solitär's voice was even. "Sensing ambient mana is like hearing the ocean from miles away. It requires different attention."
"Will you show me how?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because you need to discover it yourself. If I show you, you'll only know my method. Discovery creates understanding. Imitation creates dependency."
I turned my head to look at her. "Is that how demons teach?"
"Demons don't teach. We measure. Occasionally, we provide data points." She stood, brushing off her clothes. "Sleep. Tomorrow we reach human territory. You'll need to be alert."
"Wait. You said demons don't do mana concealment."
"We don't. Usually."
"But you mentioned it when we first met."
"I did." She looked at me with something that might have been approval. "I conceal my mana because I study humans. They react more honestly when they don't realize what I am. Most demons find concealment pointless. Why hide what you are when you're superior?"
"But you don't think that way."
"I think knowledge is superior to pride, and concealment provides knowledge." She tilted her head. "You'll learn it eventually."
I didn't sleep for a long time after that.
I lay in the grass, trying to sense the mana Solitär had described, and thought about my old world. About hospitals and machines and lives measured in decades.
Here, time moved differently. Lessons stretched across weeks. Progress was measured in centuries, not years.
I was an elf trained by a demon, carrying memories of a human life.
What did that make me?
Solitär had said she was measuring me. Trying to understand what I'd become.
I was starting to wonder the same thing.