Nona

The night before her 18th birthday, Giuliana fell asleep on Earth for the last time. Later, she realized it was far from the first time she'd been abducted. Numerous troubling occurrences—occasionally inexplicable happenings that had punched confounding holes throughout the continuity of her childhood & adolescent memories—suddenly all pieced themselves together into a coherent, canonical whole, for which her current situation, light years removed from Earth, became the only possible, inevitable adulthood.

Eunomia, in search of greener pastures…

Gia, about to bring the hammer down…

Talula had come to prefer hosting her own gatherings rather than visiting anyone else's home, as few other hosts turned out to be amenable to the trail of flora that sprang up from whatever surface she'd just stepped upon. She was gradually training herself to control the appearance and rate of growth of this vegetative trail, but for the moment it was still beyond her ability to stop it completely…

The singular face of Xia, attending an eclectic gallery opening in several alternate dimensions simultaneously…

Zubaida, glowing and feeling at home on the playa…

Ariadne, navigating the labyrinth…

Dani often dreamt she was jumping around an inflatable bounce house, but she'd never before woken up in one…

Aannii, drinking coffee, in a teacup, in space…

Although initially fascinated when they first appeared, Orico quickly came to realize that if she wanted to be able to continue lounging on the roof of her building with Larry the lizard, something drastic was going to have to be done about the gargoyles…