“The anesthesia won’t just put you under, Lucian. It will be the last time you truly live in the dark. Are you sure about the pre-op?”

Dr. Everett’s voice was as clinical and dry as the sterile air of the Metropolitan’s private wing. He stood by the window, his silhouette framed by the midtown skyline, his fingers tapping a rhythmic, impatient staccato against a silver clipboard. He didn’t look at Lucian as a man; he looked at him as a complex puzzle of optic nerves and shattered potential.

Lucian sat on the edge of the high-tech examination bed, his hands gripped tight on the edge of the paper-covered mattress. The...