Nico learned about Kade's death three hours after it happened. In a safe house eight levels away. Maya told him. Direct. No softening. 'Kade's gone. Held them off for forty minutes. Saved you. Died doing it.' Nico's first instinct was Veil. Numb the pain. Escape the grief. Maya had removed all his stashes. Anticipated this. 'You don't get to run from this. You owe him more than that.' So Nico sat with it. The grief. The rage. The crushing guilt. His best friend was dead. Died buying time for a movement that might fail anyway. Died because Nico had started this eight years ago. Forty-seven people. Now forty-eight. How many more before it ended? 'Kade chose this,' Lin said gently. 'Don't take that choice away by making it about your guilt. He died for something he believed in. Honor that.' Nico tried. Failed. Tried again. The grief stayed. But so did the work. Kade had bought time. Nico would use it. For Kade. For the forty-eight. For everyone who'd died believing this mattered. He owed them that much.