The grand living room of the Lacy villa was thick with the scent of expensive Oolong tea and the palpable, vibrating hum of collective anxiety. Normally, a gathering of the extended Lacy family was a somber affair dictated by the whims of the patriarch, Tom Lacy. But today, the air was different. It was charged with a frantic, desperate energy that bordered on hysteria.
Every television screen in the house was looped on the same local news broadcast from the previous day—the wedding of Matthew Powell and Sarah Lacy. Even through the grainy replay of the livestream, the spectacle was breathtaking. The shimmering architecture of Sky City, the rhythmic thrum of the private helicopter fleet, and the sheer density of Valor City's elite gathered on a single balcony... it was a reality that none
