“The way she talked about her meetings—they’re brutal. Do you know she has to stand naked on a pedestal and recount her sexual experiences?”

I stopped chewing.

“Rules infractions are apparently repaid with corporal punishment.”

I blinked at him. “Like, she’s whipped?”

“Well, she must not have broken any rules, because I haven’t seen any marks on her. But can you imagine?”

“No! That’s terrible.” I’d dreamed up a lot of wild stories before I understood the truth about Rose & Grave, but I’d never imagined anything like that.

“She told me about one of the other members. He or she—she wouldn’t say—is on the swim team. They stick the society pin into their skin at practice.”

I put down my bagel. “Stop. This sounds horrible. Did you find out what society it is?”

“No, but I want to. I bet we have some sort of records on them in the tomb. I want to kick these guys’ asses.”

“I can’t believe she’d submit to stuff like that,” I said, but the truth was, I could. Lydia had always viewed society membership as a crowning achievement to her time at Eli.

“I bet it’s a newer society,” Josh said. “Maybe one of the reconstituted ones. They tend to be much more hard core because they want so badly to have the same sort of reputation as Rose & Grave.”

“That’s possible. Although really, who’d want Rose & Grave’s rep right now?”

He shrugged then became quiet for a moment. “I wanted to ask you last night why you disappeared.”

“Had to. I’d had enough. I was dead on my feet. What happened?”

“The room leads into a tunnel that empties out in a corner of the sculpture garden. So you were right all along when you said there was a secret entrance to the tomb.”

“Score!” I took a swig of orange juice.

“They’d basically scattered by the time we all made it out. Not that it matters. The confrontation was the important thing. I take it you had a couple of your own?”

I didn’t answer, and Josh, to his credit, didn’t spend any time saying “I told you so.” But I’d learned my lesson. Society incest is a bad, bad thing.

“The big question is who’s going to show up to the meeting tonight,” he said.

“You think they won’t show?”

“I’m afraid of what will happen either way,” Josh said. “Amy, you know it’s your turn to be Uncle Tony.”

I caught my breath. No, I’d forgotten.

“I talked to some of the others. I was surprised by the variety of opinions on the issue. Some of them thought we should simply forget the whole thing happened. Say it’s bygones and go on with our lives. Some think we should kick their asses out of the club for breaking the oath of fidelity.”

“What do you think?” I asked him.

“What do you think?” he replied.

I leaned back on my pillows. “I say fuck ’em all. I can’t deal with it anymore.”

He was very quiet. “Some people say they should be allowed to go on as they have been. That their little faction is no different than the Diggirls.”

I sat up. “That’s bullshit.”

“I’m just saying some people have said this.”

“‘Some people’ named Mara?”

He didn’t answer. Instead, he said, “So we can talk more later about Lydia?”

“Sure. I’ll see what I can get from her. But I’m warning you, she’s pretty tight-lipped about stuff like this.”

He nodded. “And a bunch of the, uh, ‘good’ Diggers are getting together before dinner to discuss the situation. Will you be there?”

I considered this, then started scooching back beneath the covers. “I’ll be there for the meeting,” I said at last. “I think I’ve devoted enough of my time to the Order of Rose & Grave for one week.”

“Ah, you forget.” Josh stood. “It’s Sunday now. Whole new week.”

Curses.

When I finally did arrive at the tomb, shortly before dinner, I was greeted almost as you’d expect: as a conquering hero by the “good” Diggers and with cold silence by the disgraced Elysians. Fortunately, I only had to bear a moment or two of the juxtaposition before Lucky showed up. The reaction she provoked was unanimous.

“Wow, so you do have the cojones to show your face,” said Angel, raising her glass. “I salute such extraordinary chutzpah.”

I was busy saluting such an extraordinary combination of foreign tongues. We convened in the dining room for the most awkward meal I’ve ever attended. Actually, “awkward” isn’t the word. Neither is “uncomfortable,” “intolerable,” “ill-at-ease,” “strained,” or even “torturous,” though really, dinner was defined by all of the above and more. It was tough to eat, what with the giant woolly mammoth of issues arm-wrestling the enormous King Kong of unresolved tension right there in the room with us. Hale had cooked salmon in what I’m sure was a scrumptious creamy dill sauce, but I couldn’t swallow a bite. Nobody met the eyes of anyone else, the room remained more silent than the Stacks at exam time, and Puck appeared to have been body-snatched, to judge by his utter inability to crack anything resembling a joke.

Not that I would have laughed.

Twenty-nine painful minutes later, I gave a little cough to get everyone’s attention. “Shall we get this show on the road?” I said. Murmurs of assent replaced the choked stillness, and we adjourned to the Temple. I started the meeting with the usual rituals, but skipped right past the song-singing and hair-ruffling part. Who were we kidding, really?

“Tonight, in lieu of the usual discussion of fines for minor rule transgressions, let us skip straight to the real issue.” I paused for effect. “What the fuck, people?”

Everyone looked at me. I shoved back the hood of my robe.

“Seriously. I spent the last few days running around this campus and a good portion of the tri-state area, trying very hard to hold this society together. I’m tired. I’m angry. And I want to know why I should keep bothering, other than the obvious reason that I swore I would. From what anyone with the sense God gave a goldfish has been able to gather, some of you aren’t happy with the current incarnation of the society—and some of you aren’t happy with the society, full stop. So what we’re going to do now, if it’s okay with everyone, is let each knight speak in turn on the following topics.” I counted them off on my fingers. “The existence of Elysion, the perceived failings of this year’s club, the recent leaks, and what, if anything, should be done about these things. Right to left. Go.”

I sat on the throne, folded my arms across my chest, and waited.

And one by one, people began to speak.

According to Thorndike and Angel—who, stop the presses, actually agreed with each other about something—we should ride the lot of them out of the tomb on a rail, including Lucky. Oath-breaking is oath-breaking, and they’d each committed some serious oath-breaking.

Bond’s stance was that we should give the lot of them a “right good titching.” Being a bit behind on Eton slang, it wasn’t until Soze gave me a meaningful glance that I realized that whatever it meant, it was the kind of behavior more often practiced by Lydia’s society than the Diggers. Bond also suggested we follow that up with several months of probation. Except he didn’t say “probation.” He said we should “gate them.” Same thing, apparently.

Juno said we should accept the new status quo (but still kick Lucky out). As Soze had intimated earlier, she saw Elysion as not materially different from the informal gatherings the Diggirls participated in. Others (and I include myself in that number), however, argued that the Diggirls weren’t keeping any secrets—especially about our existence—from the rest of the club, nor had we formed any kind of formal parameters or rituals for the group, like the Elysions’ red robes, nor would we exclude any knight who wished to join us at whatever pizza place/coffee shop/bar we were frequenting, nor were we doing anything that could be remotely interpreted as “skimming from the top” of the Tobias Trust, so that argument didn’t hold much water. Juno merely retorted that our tattoos were rituals of the oldest and most traditional sort, and just because Elysion had thought of the dedicated meeting space and special subtrust first didn’t mean the girls wouldn’t have come up with it later. It was her recommendation that, henceforth, all Rose & Grave initiates, depending on gender, be granted simultaneous entry into either Diggirls or Elysion, much in the same way that, until recently, female students at Harvard received diplomas proclaiming them graduates of Harvard and Radcliffe.