They all leaned forward. “Yes, what about you?” someone else asked.

Whence the curiosity? My reasons—such as they were—were no better than the rest of theirs, and “My friend-with-benefits told me to stop thinking so hard” didn’t seem like particularly strong motivation. I shrugged. “It seemed the right thing to do. It’s”—my voice dropped to a whisper—“the most powerful society on campus…in the country. Networking galore. Um, are we sure this place isn’t bugged?”

“Bugged?” Clarissa asked. “By whom? The special Digger police you were talking about earlier?”

Don’t tell me—another conspiracy theory. “Can someone please provide me with a list of what about Rose & Grave is true and what is false?”

Clarissa laughed. “The second I get one, I’ll share it. But you have a point. The walls have ears. Malcolm would be telling us—”

“Discretion!” we all said in unison, lifting our glasses and laughing. I stared down at the 312. It looked like a cosmopolitan that had spent too much time listening to death metal. The bubblegum pink coloration had turned bloodred and almost opaque. I could hardly see the spiral of lemon zest at the bottom. I tasted it. Tart beyond the telling, with a kick of sweetness at the backside that couldn’t have been simple syrup. I couldn’t detect the alcohol at all. It didn’t taste precisely like the “blood” I’d drunk at initiation, but I imagined that for the Digger hoping for a little kick in the faith, it would serve as a reasonable reminder.

“Do you know what they put in this?” I asked Clarissa.

She winked at me. “It’s a secret.”

Everyone rolled their eyes. I glanced over at Jennifer, who seemed to be making inroads into hers despite her protestations. “So you and Demetria seem to be the only ones with real reasons to be members,” I said. “Do you still want to be?”

“My resolve remains as firm as always.” Jennifer took another sip.

“My reason doesn’t strike you as valid?” Clarissa asked.

“No more than mine does,” I replied. “And let’s not even talk about Odile.”

Odile polished off her drink. “It works for me, which makes it perfectly good. We don’t need to get as noble as these two chicks. If we want to be in the”—she lowered her voice—“thingamajig for selfish reasons, then who’s to tell us we can’t? Doesn’t mean they won’t benefit from the association as well. They help us along, we’ll be the best little members they can ask for. That’s my philosophy anyway.”

And it was tough to have a problem with that.

“Yes. Who cares why we joined?” Clarissa said. “The point is, if we were tapped, then we obviously deserved it, and we should get the rights and privileges associated with it, no matter what kind of genitalia we have. If Odile wants to join merely to get lobster for dinner every Thursday night, then that’s her business. Not theirs. What the—thingamajigs—get out of it is having the great Odile Dumas as a member.”

“And that’s pretty freakin’ cool,” said Odile, signaling the bartender for another 312.

Demetria rolled her eyes.

But I couldn’t be so flippant. It was pretty cool. They were lucky to have Odile Dumas as part of their in-crowd. It definitely gave the old-boys’ network some 21st century Hollywood cred. And Demetria, who, one step at a time, was going to change the world. I definitely couldn’t imagine a cogent argument against Clarissa. Not only was she a legacy, but as soon as she was back on the New York socialite scene, she’d practically run the city. And Jennifer Santos would be the next Bill Gates. That left only…me.

Where did Amy Haskel come in?

Clarissa’s phone—well, it went off, since “rang” is probably not the appropriate term for the bubbly sound effects issuing from her cell.

She glanced at the display. “Uh-oh, girls, it’s George.”

Okay, I admit it: pulse sped.

She flipped down the mouthpiece and carried on a quick conversation. Five minutes later, the rest of the junior taps arrived.

“We’ve been looking for you everywhere,” said George, shoving into the Odile-Clarissa side of the table and winking at me. “The meeting kind of broke up the second you left.”

“But I see you didn’t leave with us,” snapped Demetria, reluctantly scooting over to let Josh and Greg pile in. Kevin took the remaining seat next to George (really not a lot of space on that side) and Benjamin the basketball player (Big Demon, like Little Demon, was a name given to a tap of a particular size) pulled up an end table and a few chairs for himself, Omar, and a very disgruntled-looking Nikolos (a.k.a. Graverobber).

“Well, at first we were all in shock,” Benjamin said, settling in and waving at the bartender. “Though not as badly as the seniors. I don’t think anyone had ever just walked out of a—”

“Thingamajig!” the girls all yelled.

“—meeting before. Nobody knew what to do.”

“So we all just sat there, staring at one another,” Kevin added.

“Until we realized that we wanted to cast our lot with you all,” finished Greg. “Where are the bloody drinks?”

Bloody was right. I slid over the rest of mine and he knocked it back.

“He wanted to ‘cast his lot with us,’ too?” I asked skeptically, pointing at Nikolos.

The men were saved from answering when the bartender arrived, looking scandalized. He did a quick head count. “Where are the other three?” he asked.

“Abroad.” Clarissa handed over a credit card. “Start a tab.”

“They know us here?” Josh asked.

“Oh, honey,” said Clarissa. “We’ve even got an official drink.”

Several hours and at least five rounds of 312s later (perhaps we should have moved to pitchers), the dozen new taps at the table were in possession of darkly stained lips and had proceeded to hammer out a plan of action.

“What I still don’t get,” Kevin, one of the few naysayers left in the group, said, “is why this is our responsibility rather than the seniors’.”

“They’re short-timers,” Demetria explained. “In a few weeks, they’re out of here and the closed tomb will be our problem. It doesn’t matter so much to them.”

“It does if the patriarchs carry through with their threat,” I said. “I heard that guy talk to Malcolm this afternoon. He said they were going to ruin his career.” And mine.

Clarissa snorted. “I’d like to see them try. That man is a governor’s son. He’s plenty well connected without the help of—thingamajig. Besides, you really think the patriarchs want to make themselves an enemy like that?”

“They’ve got plenty of allies without the likes of Governor Cabot,” I said, thinking of my pillow talk with Malcolm and his stories of his father’s prejudice. To be honest, Malcolm probably did need the help of the Diggers if his dad was the only alternative.

And Poe’s words wouldn’t leave me. I have a resume to update. If I were you, I’d do the same. Poe might be a jerk, but he was a smart jerk, and seemed to know more about the Diggers than anyone else. Why shouldn’t I trust what he said?

But when I shared my fears with the rest of the group, they just laughed.

“They aren’t Big Brother, Amy,” Clarissa said. To her credit, Clarissa hadn’t made one remark that might be construed to be within the vein of slumming all evening. Then again, maybe I was no longer persona non grata now that I had crossed the ranks into Digger. Still, chick was growing on me.

Add it to the list of things I would not be telling Lydia.

“That’s not what I’d always heard,” I said.

“That’s not what you’re supposed to hear,” said Josh. “Half of the power comes from the mystique. You’re told that, um—thingamajig—owns half the city, and you look in awe upon any twenty-one-year-old who has managed to join the ranks.”

“But what about the Presidents? Why are they always members?”