Aria's POV

Fighting for your life is hard enough when you know who you are. Fighting when you're not sure if your memories are real or your identity is artificial adds a whole new level of psychological complexity to combat.

But muscle memory, apparently, doesn't care about existential crises.

I moved through the Academy guards with the fluid precision of someone who'd been training for this moment her entire life—regardless of whether that life was real or manufactured. My body knew how to ...