The remaining day passed in something close to deliberate preparation, though none of them said the word "preparation" aloud, as if naming it directly might summon the deadline faster than it was already approaching on its own.
Aaron spent most of the morning practicing controlled flight in short bursts, the motion sharpening with each attempt until he could manage a clean takeoff and a level glide of several seconds before needing to land again. Claire kept careful notes of her own — not the clinical kind Ariana favored, but practical observations scrawled on a scrap of paper: wing symmetry improving, landing control still rough, stamina limited to roughly a dozen attempts before visible fatigue set in.
"This is useful," she said, reviewing her own handwriting with the focus of someone building an actual case. "When you go back, you tell her this. Not just that the wings finished developing — that they developed better outside her lab than inside it."
