Dumbledore's eyebrows jumped. The corner of his mouth twitched before he pulled it back.
Nobody had said something like that in front of him in a very long time, least of all someone this young.
He lowered his head and lifted his teacup. There was nothing in it. He took a sip anyway.
Crow's eyes stayed nailed to Geralt's face, the muscle in his jaw working. He stayed silent for a while, then turned to Dumbledore, his voice hard. "This is who you brought?"
Dumbledore had just opened his mouth.
Crow was already on his feet. The chair knocked backward, legs scraping across the floor with a sharp screech.
His face gave away nothing. His right hand settled on the wand at his belt, and he looked down at Geralt. "Outside."
The words had barely landed before his shape twisted and he was gone. A dull thud of compressed air, and a little body heat left on the back of the chair.
Regulus grinned, amber slit pupils brightening, the heat of his magic surging outward. He glanced at Dumbledore.
The old man held the empty teacup, blue eyes looking over the rim, no sign of any intention to stop him. His mouth was curved under the white beard.
Regulus tugged at the corner of his mouth. "Relax."
He spread out his spatial perception. The ripples Crow's Apparition had left hadn't dispersed yet. The direction of the waves, the rate of decay, the tear patterns left in space during the transit all laid out a definite trail.
Northwest, seven or eight hundred metres, open ground on the far side of the hills.
He didn't stand up and didn't even touch his wand. The air twisted around him and he was gone from the seat.
Dumbledore looked at the empty chair across from him and blinked.
He set the cup down and stood up unhurriedly, straightened the front of his travelling cloak, and tucked the notebook and pocket watch away again. He dug a few bronze Knuts out of his pocket and dropped them on the table. The coins spun in place.
Then he vanished too.
The moor.
Wind came down off the hills with a low howl, carrying sand and bits of dead grass. Heather ran stiff and reddish from the foot of the slope to the top, and there were no trees anywhere. The sky was low and thick with cloud, the light flat and grey-white.
Crow was already standing there, boots on a slab of pale grey rock. His wand was in his hand, tip angled down, held at his side. His grey-brown eyes were fixed ahead, and the wind flipped his hood back, showing the white at his temples.
Regulus landed ten metres or so away, boots hitting the mud and kicking up a spray of dry dirt. The wind came in from the side. His silver-white hair blew one way, and Crow's coat blew the same way.
He did have things to say. He'd just decided to fight first and talk after.
He'd never worked in human resources, but the logic of poaching talent was the same everywhere. Beat a man until he respects you, and then he'll listen. Otherwise a young, good-looking kid lecturing a middle-aged hard case who'd spent over a decade on the moors could talk himself hoarse, and the man would just hear noise.
Regulus's wand slid into his hand. His magic surged, the heat of Betelgeuse pushing out from inside him, the waves of it warping the cold air into a fine shimmer around his body.
He rolled his neck and turned his wrist, amber slit pupils locked on Crow. His voice came low. "Come on."
Further off, on a high point of the rolling hills, Dumbledore stood at the edge of a jutting rock, the hem of his travelling cloak lifting in the wind. Dozens of metres away, his blue eyes watched the two of them.
Crow's wand came up and flicked. Non-verbal Spell.
A dark red light shot from the tip. Not large, flat trajectory, skimming the ground straight for Regulus's knees.
At the same moment, the rock slab under his feet split open. The crack spread forward from Crow's boots, extremely fast, stone and dirt churning up out of the gap. The ground where Regulus stood collapsed, the soil softening into slurry, his boots starting to sink.
A spell coming in high, his feet dropping below. One forcing him to dodge, one making sure he couldn't.
Regulus didn't dodge. He drove down hard instead.
The instant the mud caught the top of his boots, he pushed off, leg muscles snapping tight, tearing himself out of the collapsing pit and launching upward at an angle.
The dark red light passed under his feet and buried itself in the mud behind him with a hum, blowing up a cloud of black soil.
At the top of his arc he swung his wand, and the red-hot flare of a Blasting Curse roared straight at the spot where Crow was standing. The air ripped open, and the dead grass curled and charred where the light passed over it.
Crow twisted aside, boot grinding on the rock as he moved sideways.
The Blasting Curse hit where he'd been. The rock burst apart, fragments flying, and the shockwave flipped the surrounding grass over and stripped the ground bare.
Crow returned fire as he moved.
Regulus hadn't landed yet when the next spell was already on him, a dark green light shrieking through the air from the right. He couldn't turn in midair. A raised chunk of rock burst up beneath him, and he planted his boot on it and used the leverage to throw himself sideways.
The green spell grazed past his waist and blew apart on the ground behind him, throwing up stone chips.
The moment he touched down, dead branches shot up out of the soil. Dry, brittle, covered in barbs. Three or four wrapped around his ankles at once, creaking, pulling back the instant they had hold. At the same time five or six thicker branches came out of the gaps in the rubble on the other side and lashed at his shins.
Regulus drove forward instead of stopping. The first wave hit his boots and two snapped, and the third wrapped around the toe.
He chopped his wand down. A thin silver-white line swept along his shin, and the branches broke off together, the cut ends blackened, a thread of smoke rising from the burn.
More branches whipped after his heels. His silver-white hair pulled into a straight line behind him, and his boots crushed the dead grass, the debris flying up and carried off by the wind.
Still running, he threw out a Confringo. The orange-red light dragged a warped trail through the air, heading straight for Crow.
Crow didn't block. The mud rose where he'd stepped, forming a wall of earth that met the fire head on. The wall blew apart, dirt spraying in every direction, and Crow used the gap to shift to his next position, always keeping the distance he needed to counterattack.
His wand flicked upward and the rubble in front of him burst into the air, a dozen or so pieces of varying size hanging there. Then they all fired at once, whistling through the air with a dense, high-pitched shriek.
Hidden in the gaps between the stones was a Non-verbal Spell, dark purple, waiting to come through the openings as the rocks spread out. A timing trick.
Regulus swept his wand across in front of him and put a Blasting Curse straight into the middle of it.
Boom.
Red fire blew out, the stones shattered in the air, chips and dust erupting like a grey curtain of rain, and the hidden spell went up with them.
They traded for several rounds. Neither of them touched the other.
Regulus stopped on a high point of the rolling ground, the gold in his amber slit pupils burning brighter. His mouth pulled into a grin.
Crow really did have something. Fast spells, good aim, vicious follow-through, terrain manipulation woven tightly into his casting. Over a decade on the moors clearly hadn't been wasted.
Crow stood where he was, grey-brown eyes narrowing slightly.
The young man across from him was faster, and his magical capacity was no smaller. And his fighting style was unreasonable. Brutally so.
It had been a long time since he'd faced an opponent like this.
The wind swept through and pulled the dust apart. The heather shook for a moment.
Regulus accelerated, switching gears without warning. His silver-white hair dragged into a blurred streak, and his boots left irregular shallow pits in the ground. The air around him warped violently, and the grass under his feet curled and blackened, leaving a scorched yellow line wherever he ran.
The density and force of his spells rose together.
A Confringo blasted out of his wand tip, the orange-red ball far bigger than before, slamming into the stone shield Crow had just raised. It burst on impact, the shockwave spreading out, the ground shaking enough to feel from a dozen metres away.
A dark red arc cut in from another angle right behind it, skimming the ground, scorching every bit of grass along the way.
Crow retreated fast, wand swinging, two protective spells layered in front of him. The dark green light overlapped into a thick barrier and stopped the hit.
But the third spell was already on him.
The churning orange-red fireball hit the double barrier head on. The shields cracked apart in layers with a roar, and the fireball kept coming.
Crow flickered, shifting in short bursts, low walls of earth rising behind him to block the view and stop the fire.
Regulus came around the side.
His movement kept changing direction at speed. One moment he was driving straight in, then halfway he cut sideways, body almost skimming the ground.
He fired directly, and the point of impact was exactly where Crow would flicker to next.
There was no time to dodge. Crow dropped into a crouch and drove his wand into the dirt, and a boulder taller than two men tore up out of the ground in front of him.
The fire hit the boulder. The ground jolted, flames and stone bursting outward, smoke and the smell of burning rolling upward.
Crow raised a barrier at the same time, but the blast went past what it could take. Fragments punched through and cut lines across his face and arms.
Grey smoke swallowed him.
A gust came in from the side, tearing a gap in the smoke, then closing it, then tearing it again.
Regulus stood a dozen metres off, silver-white hair blown flat against the side of his face, amber slit pupils fixed on the smoke.
When it cleared, Crow was still in decent shape, pushing up out of his crouch. Several cuts on his face, the skin scraped raw over one cheekbone. His sleeve was torn open, the skin underneath scored by fragments and beading with blood.
All surface wounds.
But Regulus noticed his magic was boiling. Completely different from before. Coarse, dense, with something savage in it. His wand tip lit up, buzzing, the shaft trembling slightly.
The grey-brown eyes came through the dust. Before it had been anger, the temper of a man who'd been insulted and wanted to teach someone a lesson. Now the temper had settled, and what was left was colder and more dangerous.
Regulus's mouth slowly spread into a grin, the light in his eyes jumping, burning, spilling out.
Good. There it is.
A dozen metres apart, the two of them looked at each other.
Crow's magic was cold, hard, and heavy, sinking inward and pressing down. The loose stones around his feet rattled.
Regulus's magic was hot and restless, burning outward and rushing up. The air hummed around him and the grass under his boots began to smoke.
The wind passed between them, cold air hitting the heat, churning a warped current in the middle.
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