“What about the other two?” I asked.

“They’ve been…secured.”

“I thought you said they were tapped.”

Poe shot me a look like a cobra ready to strike. “I’ve got it covered, Bugaboo.”

“Don’t mind him,” Lancelot said. “He gets sore every time he’s reminded that he’s a mere mortal. Rest assured, if Poe couldn’t track them down, no one else will, either. We’ll get to them first. And you’ll get to be in on the initiations.”

“What if they reject the tap?” I asked, but Lancelot merely blinked at me as if such a predicament was inconceivable.

Poe pulled out a cell phone and began dialing. A moment later, one of the marines on-screen answered.

“Is this real-time streaming?” Lucky asked, joining in on the party at last.

The Digger manning the keyboard smiled and beckoned to her. “Yep. Come take a look.”

Lucky took a place behind the computer, her look of fear replaced with one of rapture. Now I remembered—Jenny Santos, who at the tender age of seventeen developed some amazing software, sold it off, then donated every last cent of her eight-figure proceeds to her church. No wonder Rose & Grave wanted her on their team.

“Okay,” Lancelot said to the man in Saudi Arabia. “Begin.” He passed the phone to Uncle Tony and joined me.

“I knew we’d win her over eventually,” he whispered in my ear, nodding his head at Lucky. “Just had to find the right apple with which to tempt her.”

“Pomegranate.”

“Huh?”

“Didn’t you take the Bible as Literature class?” I asked, pleased I could get back at him for his literary critic crack. “No such thing as apples in the Cradle of Civilization. Closest modern translators can come is that Eve ate a pomegranate. Just like your Persephone.”

Lancelot slipped his arm around my shoulders. “Our Persephone, Bugaboo.”

I frowned. “And then they both got kicked out of Paradise.”

He sighed. “Don’t you get it yet, girl? This is Paradise.”

“Shhh!” said Poe. “They’re starting.”

I turned back to the scene being beamed in from the Cradle of Civilization as Harun Sarmast was presented with his own pomegranate. The sound blipped in and out, but I caught enough to recognize that it was utterly incomprehensible.

“Are they speaking—German?” Angel asked, incredulous. Not surprising to me, though, considering my run-in with the Reaper. Hadn’t Angel been subjected to that tableau as well?

Poe nodded. “Our Saudi contingent is a little old-school.”

“And what are you?” I muttered under my breath. “A freakin’ progressive?”

Lancelot leaned in. “By Digger standards? Hell, yeah. It was all in German prior to the Second Rose & Grave Council.”

I laughed, earning yet another glare from Poe. What a killjoy.

Harun Sarmast proceeded along the path to initiation, and even without the wild costumes and the midnight-sky domed ceiling of the Inner Temple, it looked impressive. The Saudi-based alumni executed their roles with the type of military precision to be expected, considering their professions. Now that I was no longer the object of attention in the room, I could fully appreciate the earnest enthusiasm and joy the knights felt at showing the neophyte the overseas versions of the initiation players and paraphernalia. Even without the trappings of the tomb, the knights all raved about Persephone! Persephone! Persephone! (or at least a photocopy from a mythology book) Connubial Bliss! Connubial Bliss! Connubial Bliss! (crude reproduction) and Uncle Tony (whose Saudi incarnation was not wearing the elaborate rose mask) Cthony Carpathian…oh, bother. I forget the rest.

Every Digger in the room stood transfixed by the scene before us. They mouthed the words of the oaths as Harun took each one, they cheered along with the Saudi knights as he passed every stage of the initiation, they laughed when he spilled his third skull-full of pomegranate juice down the front of his shirt.

And then—here’s the really strange part—something blossomed inside my chest. I know, I know, I’d spent the evening being carried around in a coffin, tricked into thinking I was drowning, forced to drink fruit juice out of human remains, vowing to worship an ancient Greek goddess and to never tell a living soul about the whole shebang, and this was the strange part? But yes, it was. The feeling was akin to an adrenaline rush, but not unlike that first swoop of pleasure when you jump in a hot tub. I watched the faces of the knights, laughed every time Lancelot gave me an encouraging nudge, and even managed to temper somewhat my hostility toward Angel. Now that I was on the inside, Rose & Grave seemed to hold little in common with its formidable and mysterious reputation. Okay, so there were dead bodies (skeletons, at least) in this tomb. So what? They had them in the biology lab as well. And divested of their hoods and freaky-ass makeup, the other knights looked less like a satanic cult and more like a bunch of college kids playing dress-up. Even the tomb itself seemed welcoming from within. The skull sconces were a little unnerving, but the light they cast upon the wood-paneled walls and towering bookshelves was rosy and inviting. I spotted a darling cushioned window seat in one corner, perfect for curling up with a novel. I might be able to get used to this. I might like it a lot. They picked me, out of all the students in the school, to join their ranks. To be one of the first women. This was way cooler than Quill & Ink!

As I watched another knight be brought within the Society of Rose & Grave, I could feel the circle being drawn, and I was inside of it. Camaraderie took over, and—dare I say it?—brotherhood. They became we.

Lucky ran her fingers across the keyboard and suddenly the picture got ten times better. I didn’t even want to know what she’d just hacked to pull it off.

I watched Harun stumble over the oath of fidelity once, say it again with a strange, subtle flicker of his gaze toward something off-camera, and then, with a deep breath, capitulate and say it a third time with such sincerity in his eyes that it shone through even the pixellated, grainy image. Was that what we all looked like at that moment, when we promised to love, honor, and protect the society?

The Saudi Digger playing Uncle Tony lifted a scimitar. “From this moment on, you are no longer Barbarian-So-Called Harun Sarmast. By the order of our Order, I dub thee Tristram Shandy, Knight of Persephone, Order of Rose & Grave.”

Someone off screen struck a drum thrice, once, and twice again.

And from deep inside it welled up, and all together, we shouted, “DIGGERS!”

What is there to say about the rest of the evening? What salacious, luxurious details can I confess? Should I reveal how we were herded into a fleet of white stretch SUVs and driven to a Connecticut country mansion (belonging to one of the alums, or “patriarchs”)? How we drank champagne at midnight and feasted on broiled lobster at 2 A.M.? Even I was shocked that they had a chef up at three in the morning to caramelize the tops of the crème brûlée we had for dessert.

In between all of this, we had a crash course on the inner workings of the society, and enough history lessons to qualify for half a credit. The lore of Rose & Grave stretched back almost two centuries. It’s not particularly exciting (and it didn’t help that we were all exhausted and tipsy). Seems this kid Russell Tobias got into a tizzy over not being invited to join Phi Beta Kappa, huffed off to Germany, met some Masonic or Templarian, or whatever kind of brotherhood folks, and got it into his head that, like the founder of every other Eli institution, including the university itself (which was started by a bunch of folks displeased with how they were running things at 17th century Harvard), if they wouldn’t let him play in their club, he’d just start his own. So he did, and because he came from this ridiculously rich family with their fingers in every Victorian moneymaking scheme there was—agriculture, import-exports, early industry (here’s where Soze leaned over and whispered, “Drugs”)—he was able to devote a big chunk of change to his new little boys’ club, and Rose & Grave was born, as was the Tobias Trust Association. The Tobias Trust Association (or TTA, as Poe proceeded to refer to it) is the closest thing to a ruling body that Rose & Grave has. It’s presided over by a board voted in by the living members, and all monetary and other requests made by the seniors who comprise the active campus body of Rose & Grave have to be approved by this board of trustees.