Her friends were all drunk on one another by the end of it, and there was a lot of hugging and smooching. They said it was the best birthday party ever. Iris got carried away by all the good feeling and promised them next year would be even better. She said they would ride the elevator to the top of the Spoke to see the stars—the ACTUAL stars—above the cloudscape. They would drink Sparklefroth and electrocute one another with happiness. They would take the long, dreamy plunge back to earth together in Drop Bubbles. And after, they would all mask themselves in Hideware and go down into the Carnival District—which was forbidden to anyone under sixteen—and everyone who saw them in their expensive new faces would fall in love with them.

Something stirs in the cloudy green globe. The mermaid looms up from the mucus-hued shadows and boggles out at her. The girl-fish is little more than a grotesque pink slug with a face and waving, mossy-green hair.

“You might want to do something adorable,” she says, “while you’ve got the chance.”

A black string of poop squirts from a hole above her tail fin. The mermaid gawps, as if astonished by the functions of her own body.

A hoop of eldritch jade light flares in her right eye, half blinding her, signaling an incoming message. She pinches her thumb and index finger together, as if squeezing a bug to death. Words appear in fey emerald letters, seeming to hover three feet from her face, a trick of the messaging lens that she puts in her eye first thing every morning, even before she brushes her teeth.

JOYCE B: WE HAVE PLANS FOR YOU.

AMY P: EVIL PLANS.

JOYCE B: WE’RE GETTING YOU INTO THE CARNIVALS TONIGHT. IT HAS BEEN ORDAINED.

Iris shuts her eyes, rests her forehead against the cool glass of the aquaglobe.

“Can’t,” she says, squeezing her thumb and index finger together to SEND.

JOYCE B: DON’T MAKE US FORCE YOU INTO A SACK & DRAG YOU OUT KICKING & SCREAMING.

AMY P: IN A SACK. KICKING. SCREAMING.

Iris says, “My mom’s new guy is off work in an hour, and Mom wants me home for cake and presents. I guess they got me some big-deal gift that won’t wait.”

This is a lie. Iris will decide what the big-deal gift was later. It will have to be something that could only be used once, something no one can prove she didn’t get. Maybe she will tell her friends she went on a hallucication to the lunar surface and spent the night in Archimedes Station, playing Moon Quidditch with the Archimedes Owls.

JOYCE B’s reply appears in lurid fire: HIDEWARE??? DO YOU THINK YOUR MOM GOT YOU A NEW FACE?

Iris opens her mouth, closes it, opens it again. “We won’t know until I unwrap it, will we?”