I got in.

Brenna started the engine, rolling the window back up as she turned the car around. “Where are you heading?”

“You know the Be-Well Motel?” I unzipped my backpack and pulled out my wig bag. Then I reached up and peeled off my wig, tucking it into the bag before I started extricating bobby pins from my wig cap. My scalp itched like fire. I hadn’t been Valerie for such a long stretch in months: I was going to have to acclimate all over again. Swell.

“Pretty familiar,” she said. “Cheap as hell, you get what you pay for, rents by the hour, day, and week, and nobody asks any questions.”

“Exactly,” I said. The wig cap peeled away. I stuffed it into the backpack and began fluffing my sorely-abused hair. “I’m going there.”

“You have a perfectly nice bed that the producers are paying for, you know,” said Brenna. “Far be it from me to tell you how to spend your money, but . . .”

“But wasting money hurts your soul, even when the money isn’t yours, I know,” I said. “I’m not sleeping there. I’m meeting my husband there.”

“Husband? Really?” Brenna glanced at me, startled. “You mean the short, broody man you were with back at the theater? You married him?”

“Yes, I married him, not Valerie. Which is why he’s staying back and pretending to be Val’s boyfriend if anyone asks. He won’t be in the audience during the live show taping.”

“Why not?”

“Ex-Covenant.”

Brenna hit the brakes, slamming me forward. The seatbelt dug into my shoulder but kept me from going through the windshield, so I was willing to call it a win. I still yelped. I yelped again, this time in surprise rather than pain, when I turned and found Brenna staring at me, all wide eyes and impending rage.

“He’s what?!”

“He’s ex-Covenant,” I said. “He quit when he realized he’d rather have a live girlfriend than a dead trophy, and when he started to figure out that cryptids were people. He knows about William, Brenna. He was there when I found him.” When I’d been offered to him as a virgin sacrifice, technically, but I didn’t see any need to tell people that. “He didn’t tell the Covenant. He’s a good guy. He just can’t risk being caught on camera.”

“Of all the irresponsible, unreasonable, insane things you could have done, you—”

“Went and did exactly what my grandmother did, only without the ten years of pining, flirting, pining some more, drinking the cooking sherry, and trying to date other dudes?” I shrugged. “This seemed more efficient. And better for my liver.”

Brenna shook her head. “I take it back. I take it all back. You’re not the best of a bad lot, you’re as crazy as the rest of them.”

“We’re not crazy, we just have different priorities,” I said. “You’re one to talk, you know. You’re the only dragon I’ve ever met who actually spends money on shoes.”

The word “dragon” hung in the air between us for a moment, silent and accusing. Finally, Brenna blinked, and said, “You know, no human has ever called me a dragon before. Not even you.”

“Times are changing,” I said.

Brenna smiled. “I guess so.”

I’d only been on the set of Dance or Die for a week before I’d realized Brenna Kelly was a dragon princess—the term we still used, out of long habit, for the female members of an extremely sexually dimorphic species. The males were giant, fire-breathing reptiles the size of a bus. The females were attractive, human-looking women with perfect skin, perfect hair, and a tropism toward amassing as much gold as possible. It was just that in Brenna’s case, she preferred her gold to take the form of sequins and shiny shoes. She was the only materialistic dragon princess I’d ever met, and I had liked her instantly.

Getting her to like me back had been a bit more complicated, since once I’d known what she was, I’d felt obligated to tell her what I was: a Price, a cryptozoologist, and a liar, appearing on the show under a fake name. She’d responded with “You’re a dancer first,” and I’d known we were going to be friends.

Her smile faded as she drove on. “So, Verity, I’m sure you were wondering what I wanted to talk with you about.”

“Not really,” I said. “You’re a dragon. I’ve never wanted to pry, but I assume you have a Nest?”

She nodded. “My sisters think I’m strange for enjoying spending money as much as I enjoy making it. As long as I give half my earnings to the Nest, they don’t mind so much. I make valuable connections they can exploit for a profit. There’s a lot of work for pretty girls who don’t want to be big stars in this town. We can always find another photo shoot or music video that wants a few of us for set dressing. Private parties, too. Not the sex kind—we avoid that sort of intimacy with humans—but the sort where we just need to wander around being decorative.”