The Dragon Lord and His Hybrid Daughter

The beckett house was a lie told in beige stucco and manicured hedges.

It sat at the end of a cul-de-sac called Morning Glory Lane, which was the kind of name that made you think of old women pruning roses, not seventeen-year-old quarterbacks who walked through the world like it owed them an apology. I stood on the front porch, clutching the strap of my backpack so hard the nylon bit into my palm, and stared at the brass knocker shaped like a lion's head. Even the door hardware looked like it belonged to a different tax bracket than my family.

My mom's voice echoed in my head from that morning. "It's just a job, Mar. You've babysat the Henderson twins. How much worse can one toddler be?"

The Henderson twins had tried to microwave a hamster. I was pretty sure this was going to be worse, because the toddler wasn't the problem. The problem was the toddler's brother, and the fact that I had spent the last three years of high school perfecting the art of being invisible specifically to avoid people like him.

But Vermont.

The Vermont Young Writers' Workshop cost $4,200 for the summer session. My parents could contribute exactly zero dollars after my dad's second knee surgery and the subsequent layoff from the warehouse. Financial aid covered two-thirds. The Beckett job—live-in nanny, Monday through Friday, room and board included—covered the rest. In exchange, I got to live in the enemy's house for four months and pretend I didn't flinch every time someone said his name in the hallway.

Leo Beckett.

Star quarterback. Future of Northwood High football. Owner of a smile that made teachers forget he hadn't turned in a single homework assignment since sophomore year. And, as of last spring, the guy whose friends had started a group chat called "Marlowe the Marshmallow" that circulated for three days before someone screenshotted it and sent it to me anonymously.

I hadn't cried. I'd just added their names to a list in the back of my journal under the heading: People Who Will Die First in the Apocalypse.

The door swung open before I could touch the lion knocker.

The woman standing there was exactly what I'd expected from the Beckett family photos that populated the local news whenever Leo threw a game-winning pass. Blonde highlights, yoga-toned arms, a smile that was warm but somehow still managed to look expensive. Celeste Beckett. She was wearing linen pants and holding a travel mug that probably cost more than my entire wardrobe.

"Marlowe! Oh, thank goodness." She reached out and squeezed my shoulder, her rings cool against my skin. "You're a lifesaver. I know this is last-minute, but the agency said you were available for immediate start, and honestly, we're drowning over here."

I forced a smile. "Happy to help, Mrs. Beckett."

"Celeste, please. Mrs. Beckett is my mother-in-law, and she's not nearly as nice as I am." She stepped aside, ushering me into a foyer with ceilings so high I felt like I'd shrunk three inches just standing under them. "Leo mentioned you go to Northwood together? Small world."

My stomach dropped into my sneakers. "He mentioned me?"

"Oh, just that he'd seen you around. Said you were in AP English with him." She laughed, a light, airy sound. "I'm not sure how that's possible, since Leo hasn't opened a book since The Very Hungry Caterpillar, but it's sweet that he pretends."

So he hadn't told her about the group chat. Or the fact that he'd watched his friends call me a beached whale in the cafeteria line last March and hadn't said a word. Good. I could work with neutral ground.