The fall from hopeful revolutionary to prison labourer is a hard one. Fer's world has shrunk from the whole damn universe to this anonymous asteroid and the four other convicts who share it with them. It's a fitting end, for someone who used to wish on stars but now can only seem to collect endings. But magic and falling stars have ways of finding those who need them, and when Fer takes a chance and looks up, there's a mermaid staring back at them, silhouetted by stars. twice-spent comet is a fairy tale for forgotten places and the people whose stories are stuck waiting for the next sentence.