# Chapter 10: Eli's Blurry Memory

The morning light crept through the tall windows of the former ballroom, casting long golden rectangles across the marble floor. Alexandea stood at the center of the room, arms outstretched like a scarecrow, while Lucienne circled him with the critical eye of a sculptor assessing flawed marble.

"Again," Lucienne said flatly. "From the beginning."

Alex groaned. "We've been at this for three hours."

"And in three hours, you've managed to achieve the posture of a drunk stork. Eliza has outperformed you in every single category, and she learned how to walk in heels yesterday afternoon."

Alex shot a look at Eli—Eliza, he corrected himself—who stood at the far end of the ballroom in a perfect curtsey, sky-blue dress pooled around her like flower petals. The young man's movements were fluid, natural, as if he'd been born to wear the gown. Which, Alex supposed, was exactly the problem.

"Eliza," Lucienne called, "demonstrate the walk again. Slowly."

Eli rose from the curtsey with an elegance that made Alex's jaw tighten. He—she—moved across the marble floor like water finding its level. The hips swayed gently, the hem of the sky-blue dress whispered against the floor, and the dark wig caught the light with each measured step. Eli's posture was immaculate: shoulders back, chin level, hands folded at the waist.

"Beautiful," Lucienne murmured. "Now Alexandea. Show me what you remember."

Alex took a breath. He'd spent the past three hours alternating between the walk, the curtsey, the tray-carrying, and the proper way to address a lord or lady of the house. His body ached in places he didn't know could ache. But the worst part wasn't the exhaustion.

It was the sensation.

The prosthetics were impossibly detailed. Thousands of neural sensors threaded through the artificial skin, feeding information directly into his nervous system. When Lucienne had first applied the chest piece, Alex had nearly jumped out of his skin. The weight was wrong. The presence of flesh that wasn't his was wrong. But the feeling—the way the silicone responded to every shift of his muscles, the way it moved when he breathed—that was the part that refused to be ignored.

He took his first step. The hip prosthetics forced his legs into a narrower gait, and he felt the artificial curve of his buttocks press against the crimson silk of his servant dress. …