What if you discovered your very existence was a lie?

Maela Driscoll, expat, postdoc, and lover of wine and English Romantic poetry, wakes up one morning to be told that she’s been in a coma, after suffering a traumatic brain injury in a violent mugging. Her memories of the past four months – everything she’s done; everyone she’s met – are false, innocent stories told to her as she slept by Kailani Reed, a fellow patient at the Mount Ida sanatorium. A resident of the facility for sixteen years, Kailani suffers from delusions, helplessly cycling between the roles of patient, empath, and secret agent. Her particular nemesis is the Matron, Elizabeth Cole, who favors unorthodox methods of treatment.

Struggling to accept the harsh reality of the sanatorium, Maela and Kai begin to plot together to escape. If the Babylon Project and its fight against Kronos were a fantasy, then they can still try to find a refuge, far from Elizabeth Cole and her helpers. And if everyone the women knew was a fiction, then surely they can at least trust each other?