The afternoon sunlight filtered through the floor-to-ceiling windows of Liam's bedroom at Bellemere Mansion, painting geometric patterns across the hardwood floor as he woke with a brightness in his expression that had nothing to do with the weather.
He'd stayed up far later than he should have, scrolling through reactions to both announcements with the kind of satisfaction that came from watching carefully laid plans unfold exactly as intended. The chaos was beautiful in its predictability.
The desperation, the hope, the fury, the institutional panic—all of it had played out across social media and news outlets in waves that he'd watched crest and break with something close to artistic appreciation.
