Kiera's information was a tidal wave. She confirmed the Shadow Court's role as agents of the Grand Design, though she'd only understood them as "the ultimate customers." She'd sold them secrets, artifacts, and safe passage for centuries, believing they were just another powerful, amoral faction.
"They're not amoral," she said, sipping the distilled star-water Mira offered. "They're anti-moral. Their only principle is the preservation of schism. They fund both sides of brushfire wars. They rescue philosophers of unity… only to dissect them. They've been manipulating the Beast World's clan wars for generations to keep anyone from uniting it."
She also knew about Kaelen. "The Black-Ops observer? She wasn't just a mole. She was a Sleeper. The Court implants agents in key positions and activates them only for critical missions. You were a critical mission. Her betrayal wasn't personal. It was systemic."
The hardest information was about herself. "They're coming for me," she said, her voice losing its confident lilt. "I know too much about their operations in the mid-tier realities. I was supposed to be 'retired' after helping you. But I'm too good at surviving. They've sent a Cleaner. A Tier 8 Void-Stalker named Silence. It's already in the Gloom."
The team exchanged glances. A Tier 8 assassin hunting an ally on their doorstep changed the calculus.
"You can stay," Echo said. "But this isn't a mercantile house. This is a sanctuary. The price isn't information. It's loyalty. To the idea that there's something more than this endless, engineered war."
Kiera met his gaze, her fox-like eyes unblinking. For the first time, Echo saw the brilliant, calculating mind behind them not assessing a deal, but searching for something real. "I have spent my life trading in everything except trust," she said quietly. "It is the one currency I have never understood. Show me."