- It's the night of Cassia's seventeenth birthday and her Match Banquet, which means she gets to find out who her match (a.k.a. future husband) is.
- She rides the train to the event with her parents and BFF/next-door neighbor, Xander. She shows Xander her artifact: a shiny gold compact that her grandfather gave her as a gift earlier that day. It says ACM 1940 on it.
- Inside the compact, Cassia keeps three emergency tablets: blue, green, and red. Mysterious.
- After a five-star meal, the matching begins. Each girl gets called up alphabetically, and the face of her match (usually in some other city) appears on a large screen.
- It's Cassia's turn. She looks up at the screen—wait for it—and it's black? Uh oh.