Content Warning: This section of the guide describes and analyzes the source text’s depiction of domestic abuse, racism, and institutionalized racist violence. Additionally, the source material uses outdated, offensive terms for mental health conditions, which are replicated in this guide only in direct quotes of the source material.

In his dressing room, Frederic Delaney prepares for the opening of his latest opera. As he pours out two glasses of champagne, he realizes that he has forgotten his champagne stopper. Delaney puts one glass in front of a photograph and toasts it with his glass. Usually, his ritual includes finishing the same bottle after the performance, but without a stopper, he has to ask the custodian to get him a second bottle without disturbing the second glass.

A Columbia professor named Kevin Bernard Hendricks, who goes by Bern, is listening to Delaney’s Quicksilver symphony. Bern considers canceling class in order to listen to the rest of the symphony, but he ends up canceling class to attend a meeting at the Delaney Foundation. Mallory Delany Roberts, the Foundation’s executive director, emails Bern and asks him to help with an urgent project. Bern thinks about his late adviser, Jacques Simon, and calls Mallory.