The acoustics of the Blackwood Opera House had been designed to carry the delicate, weeping high notes of a soprano to the furthest corners of the gallery. Tonight, they carried a different kind of music—the wet, ragged breathing of a shattered dynasty.
Sarah Vance stood frozen at the edge of the stage, her disheveled platinum hair catching the harsh, clinical glare of the emergency strobe lights. Her gold-plated remote, once a scepter of absolute municipal control, lay cracked and useless at her feet. She looked up at Julian, and then at the woman standing half a step behind him, her face draining of color until she looked like a marble statue of a queen who had just realized her crown was made of ash.
Julian didn't offer her a trial. He didn't waste time on a jury.
He stepped forward,
