Chapter 221: Oh well...
That night, Aaron lay on the plush mattress in his quarters, staring at the metal ceiling, and made a decision he probably should have made the moment Ariana first mentioned "tomorrow, we push the dose slightly higher."
He wasn't doing tomorrow.
Not because the data wasn't useful — he could admit, grudgingly, that everything Ariana had shown him today had been genuinely informative, the kind of information he might never have gotten on his own. But useful and worth staying for weren't the same thing, and he'd agreed to come here under duress, not under any actual obligation to stay indefinitely while his sister worked through an open-ended research itinerary. Eva and Claire were back at the inn, presumably managing without him, presumably fine, but presumably wasn't a word he wanted sitting between himself and the people he loved for any longer than necessary.
He sat up. Across the room, Alyssa was curled on her section of the bed, still deeply asleep, her breathing slow and even, looking entirely unbothered by the day's transformations now that exhaustion had caught up with her properly.
He let her sleep. Whatever he was about to attempt, there was no reason to drag her into the risk of it before he even knew if it was possible.
The first problem was the door.
His quarters locked from the outside via the same fingerprint system as everywhere else in this building, which meant the door itself wasn't really the obstacle — his own palm print would open it without complaint. The actual obstacle was what waited beyond it: a facility he barely understood, populated by researchers who treated strange occurrences as routine, sealed behind that enormous vacuum-rated hatch that led to the lab, and reached, originally, through a magic transport circle that he had no idea how to operate without Ariana's voice command.
Liam, take me to my lab, will you, sweetheart.
The portal had responded to her specifically. Aaron had no idea if it would respond to him at all, and even if it did, he had no idea where else it might take him besides back to the ruins they'd left from — which, while not exactly home, was at least somewhere he recognized, somewhere closer to Eva and Claire than a sealed research mountain clearly built with the express purpose of keeping things in and curious people out.
He pressed his palm to the inside scanner. The door hissed open without resistance, which told him something useful — whatever security measures this place had, they weren't currently treating him as a prisoner. Just a guest who happened to be sealed inside a facility with no outside signal and very particular opinions about who got to leave.
He stepped into the corridor.
It was quieter now than it had been during the day — fewer footsteps, fewer distant machine hums layered over each other, the kind of late-hour hush that suggested most of the staff had gone wherever staff went when they weren't actively dissecting strange biology. Aaron moved carefully, retracing the path from memory: the same turns Ariana had walked him through that first day, first right, then left, then straight to the dead end.
He didn't go toward the lab.
He went toward the entrance instead — back the way they'd originally come in, toward wherever the transport circle had deposited them inside this metal fortress.
It took longer than he expected, the corridors looping in ways that hadn't been obvious when he was simply following Ariana without paying close attention to the architecture itself. Twice he had to backtrack, retracing his steps after a turn led him somewhere unfamiliar, and twice he held his breath as a distant set of footsteps passed by an adjacent hallway without ever rounding the corner into his own.
Eventually, he found it — a wide room near what he guessed was the building's lower levels, the floor marked with the same kind of glowing inscription he'd seen back in the ruins, except this one pulsed with a steadier, more institutional blue rather than the faint ember-orange of the outdoor circle.
He approached it carefully, crouching at the edge to study the markings. They were similar to the ones outside, but not identical — more complex, layered with additional symbols he didn't recognize, clearly built for something more sophisticated than a single point-to-point connection.
"Liam," he said quietly, testing the air, half-expecting nothing at all.
Nothing happened.
"Liam," he tried again, slightly louder. "Take me to..."
He stopped. Take him where? He didn't know this place's name for the ruins they'd departed from. He didn't know if "the inn" or "Eva and Claire" meant anything to whatever intelligence — spirit, construct, enchanted system, he genuinely didn't know what Liam was — operated this transport network.
A soft chime sounded from somewhere within the circle itself, and a voice, smooth and entirely without inflection, answered him.
"Destination required. Authorized destinations for current user profile: none."
Aaron's stomach sank slightly. "None?"
"Current user profile: guest, unregistered for independent transport. Authorization required from primary account holder."
"Of course it does," Aaron muttered.
He stood, running a hand through his hair, and looked around the room properly for the first time. No alternate exits that he could see. No staircases leading up toward what he assumed was ground level. Just smooth metal walls, the humming undercurrent of distant machinery, and a transport circle that flatly refused to take him anywhere without Ariana's explicit permission.
He could try walking. Somewhere in this mountain there had to be a conventional door, an entrance that didn't rely on magic at all — vehicles had to get supplies in somehow, even if Ariana found the idea of "anything other than a portal" beneath her. But searching an unfamiliar facility this size, at night, without knowing the layout, risked exactly the kind of attention he was trying to avoid.
He weighed his options for a long moment, frustration building steadily under his ribs, the same simmering helplessness he'd felt back at the inn when Ariana first laid out her ultimatum. No leverage. No choice. Just different doors that all happened to be locked the same way.
Eventually, he turned and walked back toward his quarters, defeated for tonight but not finished, the beginnings of a different plan already forming.
If the portal needed authorization from Ariana directly, then the answer wasn't sneaking past her. It was making her want to send him back — or, at minimum, making the cost of keeping him here outweigh whatever benefit she still hoped to extract from further trials.
He found her in the lab the next morning before she could even call for him, the hatch hissing open at his approach since his prints were apparently already cleared for entry without an escort.
Ariana looked up from her desk, mild surprise crossing her face at his early arrival. "Eager today? I haven't even called yet."
"We need to talk about timelines," Aaron said, not bothering with pleasantries.
"Timelines for what?"
"For how long this is going to take. I have people waiting for me, Ariana. People who didn't sign up for an indefinite research stay, and frankly, neither did I." He crossed his arms, keeping his voice level despite the frustration sitting just beneath it. "I agreed to come here because you left me no choice. I didn't agree to stay forever."
Something shifted behind Ariana's sunglasses — not quite surprise, more like she'd been expecting this conversation eventually and was simply recalibrating for it arriving sooner than planned.
"I tried the transport circle last night," Aaron continued, watching her reaction carefully. "It told me I needed authorization from you. So I'm asking. How much longer, realistically, before I can go back?"
Ariana set down her pen, considering him for a long moment with an expression he genuinely couldn't read.
"That depends on what you're willing to commit to," she said finally. "If you want this wrapped up quickly, I need cooperation, not evasion. Two more days of focused trials — proper trials, the kind we discussed yesterday — and I'll have enough baseline data to let the rest develop naturally, with periodic check-ins instead of you living here full-time."
"Two days."
"Two days, and I mean it. I'm not interested in holding my own brother hostage indefinitely, regardless of what you've apparently decided about my character." A faint, tired edge crept into her voice, the theatrical brightness dimmed slightly by what looked like genuine exhaustion underneath it. "I have what I need to start understanding what you are. What I don't have yet is enough to protect you properly once word eventually gets out — and it will get out, eventually, no matter how careful either of us are. Two days buys me enough to build you actual protection. Not just secrecy."
Aaron studied her, weighing the offer against the restless urgency sitting in his chest, the pull toward Eva and Claire that hadn't eased at all since he'd left them standing outside the inn.
"Two days," he repeated. "Then you authorize the portal yourself. No further delays, no new excuses."
"Two days," Ariana agreed. "You have my word, brother. For whatever that's currently worth to you."
"Currently, not much," Aaron said honestly. "But I'll take it, since it's the only offer on the table."
Ariana's mouth curved into something that wasn't quite her usual teasing smile — smaller, a little more tired, a little more real.
"Fair enough," she said. "Let's make these two days count, then."