Chapter 230: Operational Losses

"With you," Liam added, because apparently he had decided honesty should injure everyone present. "To Agaron."

Arik came closer slowly, stopping on the other side of the bench. "Yes."

Everyone waited.

Liam could feel it.

Mara had gone very still with her tablet pressed to her chest. Stanford’s expression had turned blanker than usual, which meant he was preparing for either emotional collapse or physical extraction. Mezos stood near the corridor feed with the rare discipline of a man who had decided not to make a joke because the room might explode. Even Arik looked as if one wrong breath would make him burn down Canmore Palace out of sympathy.

They were all waiting for the obvious consequence.

A souring mood.

A sharp laugh.

A ward flare beneath Liam’s shirt because his emotions had become another medical hazard, apparently.

Perhaps a meltdown.

None of that happened.

Liam looked around the small temporary laboratory, at the half-erased whiteboards, the old test housing, the storage labels in his own handwriting, and the place that had once been enough because he had not known how much of his life had been arranged by people who wanted him small, useful, or trapped.

Then he looked at Arik.

"I still want a new lab in your quarters in Agaron," Liam said with a grin that made even Mezos sweat.

Silence.

It was a beautiful silence.

The kind that followed artillery.

Arik blinked once.

Mara’s mouth opened slightly.

Stanford looked at the floor as if checking whether the building had moved.

Mezos, who had faced assassins, corrupted nobles, old secrets, and Arik in several moods that had probably violated international treaties, went very carefully still.

Arik’s eyes narrowed. "In my quarters."

"Yes."

"In the private imperial wing."

"Preferably close enough that I do not have to cross half a palace every time I want to verify a thermal curve."

"That is your practical concern?"

"One of them."

Mezos cleared his throat. "Lord Liam, imperial private quarters are not usually designed with experimental ether infrastructure."

Liam turned his smile toward him.

Mezos stopped speaking.

A remarkable event.

"I am aware," Liam said. "That is why I said new lab."

Arik’s expression changed, and Liam saw the moment worry gave way to something else. Not relief exactly. Not amusement either. Something warmer and far more dangerous.

"You want to bring the work with you," Arik said.

"I want to bring myself with me. The work is attached."

Mara looked down sharply.

Stanford’s gaze moved to Arik.

Mezos’s face regained enough life to become faintly horrified. "That was almost emotionally healthy."

"Do not accuse me of things in my own laboratory," Liam said.

"This is technically Canmore property."

"Not for long."

Arik’s mouth curved as Liam had just handed him an impossible demand, and Arik had already begun arranging people’s misery around granting it.

Liam pointed at him. "Do not look like that."

"Like what?"

"Like you are about to make five architects cry."

"Only five?"

Mara made a strangled sound.

Liam ignored it because if he looked at her too long, he might have to acknowledge that she had been frightened he would leave the work behind and, worse, that he had been frightened of the same thing.

"I am not giving up Lab V," Liam said. "Wrohan still needs it. The Vanguard remains here as a national project, especially if Rex intends to start making examples out of every noble parasite connected to the grid."

"He does," Arik said.

"I know. I like that about him."

"That is concerning."

"It is efficient. But if I move to Agaron, I need a parallel facility. A real one. Not a ceremonial study with a decorative drafting table and imperial curtains."

Arik looked offended. "I would never give you a decorative drafting table."

"I am setting expectations early."

"Good."

"And I want secure remote access to Lab V, independent of Wrohan’s ministry servers."

"Done."

"Direct staff exchange routes."

"Done."

"Budget line for Mara’s division."

Arik looked at Mara. "Done."

Mara went pale. "Your Highness—"

"Do not thank him," Liam said immediately. "He becomes strange when people are sincere."

Arik looked at him.

Liam looked back.

Mezos’s eyes sharpened. "That is useful information."

"It is classified," Arik said.

"It is household data now," Liam replied.

Mara lowered her tablet slowly, something like hope and terror warring across her face. "My lord, if a parallel facility is created, not everyone will be able to relocate permanently."

"I know," Liam said. "I do not want everyone relocated. I want a rotation structure. Agaron gets development and advanced testing. Wrohan keeps field deployment, operator training, and maintenance teams. If this is done correctly, the Vanguard becomes harder to kill because no single court, bank, ministry, or treasonous family branch controls all of it."

Liam looked back at the lab and felt the tightness in his chest settle. He was going to lose proximity. Routine. Rooms. The careless familiarity of knowing which cabinet stuck and which old circuit board hummed before failing.

He was not going to lose the work.

Not unless he allowed the world to mistake geography for ownership.

"No meltdown?" Mezos asked mildly.

Liam smiled at him again.

Mezos regretted it. Visibly.

"I am an engineer," Liam said. "I do not melt down when a system changes. I redesign the system."

Stanford inclined his head. "That is not always true, my lord."

Liam turned slowly toward him.

Stanford remained blank. "But it is true now."

Liam considered demoting him from professional traitor to professional inconvenience.

Later.

Arik came around the bench at last, stopping close enough that Liam could feel the warmth of him, but still leaving space. Always space now, unless Liam crossed it.

Liam did.

"You were afraid," Arik said quietly.

"Yes."

The answer was too clean to take back.

Arik’s gaze softened.

Liam continued before either of them could become unbearable. "I still am. Agaron is not my country. Your imperial family is terrifying. Your private wing probably has too many windows and not enough emergency shutoff valves. And if anyone tries to give me a ceremonial laboratory, I will become historically unpleasant."

"I would expect nothing less."

"But I am coming," Liam said.

Arik went still.

The room faded around them for a second.

Mara, Stanford, Mezos, Canmore Palace, Ray’s execution clock above the country, all of it became background to Arik looking at him as if Liam had just placed something living and fragile in his hands.

Liam swallowed.

"Eventually," he added, because he was not completely without defenses. "With conditions."

Arik’s voice was low. "Name them."

"New lab in your quarters."

"Yes."

"Not near your mother’s favorite reception rooms."

Arik’s mouth twitched. "Yes."

"Independent ventilation."

"Yes."

"Emergency shielding."

"Sure."

"Access for Mara."

"Yes."

"And if anyone says future consort duties should take priority over engineering, I want written permission to be unpleasant."

Arik’s smile turned beautiful enough to become a threat.

"You do not need written permission."

"I want it anyway."

"Done."

Mezos murmured, "This is how constitutions collapse."

Liam looked at him. "Good. I dislike most constitutions written by people without laboratory experience."

Mara finally laughed.

It was small, startled, and too relieved to be true.

Liam pretended not to hear the relief.

Arik did not.

His hand brushed Liam’s, ring against ring for one brief second. "Then we build it."

Liam looked at the old test housing, the notebooks waiting to be seized, and the lab that had been his before everything changed and would remain part of him after everything changed again.

"First," he said, turning toward the storage shelves, "we take everything that is mine."

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