"Mens Acuta. Velocitas." The enhancements snapped into place. Then everything went silent.
He opened with a Stunning Spell aimed at her center mass. Hecat's shield materialized without a word, caught his spell, and dissolved. Her counter came in the same silence. A Stunner and Body-Bind arriving in rapid sequence, both nonverbal, both precise.
Rowan blocked the Stunner with a silent shield. Sidestepped the Body-Bind. Countered with a curved Knockback Jinx aimed at where her dodge would take her.
She deflected it mid-motion and fired back. Two spells overlapping, both silent. Rowan caught them on a spherical Shield Charm, the dome modification that protected from all angles.
They were both casting without words now. Both reading wand movements instead of hearing incantations. The advantage Hecat had held in their first duels, fighting in complete silence while Rowan announced every spell, was gone.
What remained was experience against power.
The exchange accelerated. Rowan threw a silent Stunner. Hecat sidestepped and countered with a spell he didn't recognize, a twisting trajectory that seemed to warp the air slightly as it flew. He dodged on instinct. She pressed with two more silent spells, forcing him back toward the edge of the platform.
He held ground with a nonverbal shield and countered immediately. Silent Body-Bind. She deflected it without visible effort. He followed with a curved Knockback aimed low, forcing her to shift her weight, then threw a Disarmer at the opening the weight shift created.
She caught the Disarmer on a shield that appeared and vanished in the same instant. Her counter was three spells in rapid succession, each aimed at a different angle, high and low and center. Rowan blocked the first, dodged the second, and the third grazed his shoulder hard enough to pull his balance.
A minute passed. Then another.
Hecat's expression hadn't changed, but the quality of her attention had sharpened. She wasn't dominating this the way she'd dominated their first sessions. She was fighting. Actually fighting.
She changed tactics. A spell Rowan didn't recognize at all, faster than anything she'd thrown yet, with a trajectory that curved mid-flight. He raised a shield. The spell hit it, shattered it, kept coming. Rowan dodged left, rolled, came up casting. Silent Stunner, silent Disarmer, both aimed at the opening his movement created.
Hecat blocked both with shields that materialized and vanished like afterimages. Her counter was immediate. Three silent spells in rapid succession, each from a different angle.
He caught the first on a shield. Dodged the second. The third struck his wand hand, a controlled force that weakened his grip without injuring the fingers. His wand lifted from his palm in a slow arc and clattered on the platform.
Hecat lowered her wand.
Silence.
Rowan picked up his wand, breathing hard. His shoulder ached where the earlier spell had connected. His reserves felt deep, the expanded core still far from depleted. But Hecat had found the opening and taken it, as she always did.
The difference was the time. Two and a half minutes instead of ten seconds. Two and a half minutes of genuine competition instead of immediate domination.
Hecat looked at him for a long moment.
"That," she said quietly, "was not the same student I put on this platform three months ago."
"No."
"You're casting nonverbally. Reliably. In a live duel against me." She paused. "Most students don't develop it before seventh year, and you're doing it consistently, reading my casting, adapting in real-time."
Rowan said nothing.
"Professor Garlick mentioned at the last staff meeting that a rare fungus she'd been cultivating with one of her students was stolen from Greenhouse Three," Hecat said, and her tone didn't change at all. Conversational. Observational. "She was quite upset about it. A specimen with an unusual magical signature, she said. Vanished the same weekend that student ended up in the Hospital Wing with a dramatically expanded magical core."
She let that sit in the air between them.
"I'm not going to ask you how you did what you did tonight," Hecat continued. "I know you well enough to understand that if you wanted me to know, you'd have told me already. What I am going to tell you is this: what happened on that platform tonight changes how I'm going to train you. We're going to need to find you a different kind of challenge."
"I understand, Professor."
"Good." She turned toward the door, then stopped. "Sallow's been hovering outside since I dismissed the club. I suspect he wants a word."
She left.
Rowan stood alone on the platform for a moment. Then he picked up his jacket and walked toward the door.