Whatever, Amy. He’s a jerk. Save your sympathy for someone else.

Lucky dropped by as I was tying the hood on my robe. “Hey, Bugaboo, I already talked to Soze, but I wanted to tell you that my—um, friend…he didn’t mean what he said at the bazaar. It just came out wrong.” She looked down at her hands. “He sometimes doesn’t realize how it sounds. I hope you don’t think I—”

I put my hand over hers, my earlier annoyance for her lack of commitment vanishing. “Of course I don’t. You’re one of us. I trust you. And we can talk about it more if you want.” I checked the swiftly emptying kitchen. “After the initiation.” She was always so much friendlier inside the tomb than when I saw her in the barbarian world. Better take advantage of it while I could.

Half an hour later, we were at “places,” waiting for the show to start, which meant I was back to crouching in a dusty corner with my bag o’ glitter, wishing I’d done more thigh workouts at the gym.

“Yo, ’boo,” Puck whispered across the way. “See anything yet?” He’d had been given the role of Quetzalcoatl in the festivities, proving perhaps that Lil’ Demon’s true talent lay in casting choices, because the shirtless-loincloth outfit was an excellent look for the boy. Feathered headdress, scale makeup, and all.

“No,” I whispered back.

“Good.” He slithered over to my side of the hallway (and I say that literally, as those FX guys had somehow applied a long tail to his outfit—which was, no, still not a turnoff) and slid down the wall next to me, crossing his legs beneath him. I spotted gym shorts beneath the loincloth. Damn. “About last night—”

Oh, no, please don’t ask about Brandon! “Yeah?”

“I wanted to apologize.”

Huh?

“For my mom. She’s not usually like that.” He fiddled with some of the beading on his ceremonial bracelets.

“Oh. That’s okay.” I cocked my head to one side. Was that the chanting in the Firefly Room starting up?

“We got some news.” He took a deep breath. “My dad’s pregnant. I mean, his wife. They’re having a baby. And let’s just say he’s known for a lot longer than he’s been acting like it where my mom’s concerned.”

I couldn’t even work up a token expression of surprise. Disdain, however, was available in surplus.

“Romantic, huh?” Puck said.

“Depends on your definition of romance.”

“I try not to have one.” He leaned into me, and let his voice drop to a low, husky timbre. “I find it’s better for everyone involved if I keep myself open to…new interpretations.”

“How magnanimous,” I said. “And kind of kinky.” Which would have sounded a lot smoother if my hands hadn’t gotten all clammy at the thought and dropped the bag of phosphorescent dust.

He looked down at the glitter scattered across the floor, then at me. “Slick move, Amy.”

“Ooh, best stick with ’boo, at least in the tomb. That will be two dollars.”

“Stupid fines,” he whispered against my hood.

I shifted my face ever so slightly toward his. “Tell you what, I’ll say ‘George’ and then we’ll be even.” But then neither of us said much of anything, what with the fact that our mouths were busy and all.

Now, you’d think cold tomb floors are not the most pleasant place to lie, but if you’ve got George Harrison Prescott—I mean, Puck—on top of you, you’d be wrong. Even with the random jabs and pokes from the quills on his costume, I was chock full of pleasure. Every time I kiss him (which has been twice now) I’m struck by the puerile nature of all the silly games men and women play. Why the coy drama? I want him and he wants me; who needs subtext?

Everything was going along beautifully in the first base department, and we were blithely and completely irresponsibly (considering the timing) headed to second when the explosion happened.

We froze at the din, and stared at each other as the floor of the tomb shuddered beneath us. Puck bit his lip. “’Boo, your face—”

“Get up,” I said, yanking my robe out from underneath him. “Get up now!”

Together, we rushed toward the balcony and looked down to see billows of smoke emanating from the Firefly Room. Several figures stumbled out, coughing, and Keyser Soze rushed down the hall, wielding a fire extinguisher. “Outta my way! Outta my way, folks! The last thing we need is the fire department up in here.”

“What happened?” Puck shouted down as we rounded the stairs. From what little I could see of the room, there appeared to be no raging inferno inside, but that had been one hell of a bang.

“Pyrotech issue,” Lil’ Demon gasped. “It’s okay, it’s okay. The grips got it out.”

“Bugaboo,” Thorndike said, pointing her pitchfork at me. “What’s all over your face?”

“Whatever it is,” Lucky said, waving her hand around to clear the smoke out of the air, “it’s the same stuff on Puck’s chest.”

I looked at Puck, whose body was smeared all over with phosphorescent dust. It was streaked on my robe and my hands as well, an obvious testament to my backstage activities.

Thorndike raised an eyebrow in my direction, and her disapproving expression was helped enormously by her devil costume. Playa, she mouthed in warning.

“Move it, girly,” Hale cried, shoving Thorndike aside to join Soze on extinguisher duty.

“Dear Lord,” came a voice through the haze. “What kind of show are you people running here?” I saw a curly head emerge from the smoky darkness. “I’d never expect the Diggers to be so sloppy!” Mara Taserati surveyed Lucky, Lil’ Demon, Thorndike, and me clustered at the foot of the stairs. “So the rumors are true,” she said.

Um, what did she think? She was a girl, too.

“Apparently they’re all true,” said Angel, joining us and crossing her arms over her chest. The rubber asp forming the bulk of her Cleopatra costume slipped down one shoulder, exposing more than just her tattoo.

Soze clapped his hands. “Okay, guys. Fire’s out. Let’s go back now.”

Mara snorted inelegantly. “Right, more endangering of my life? I’m not up for that, thanks.”

“I’m with her,” said a boy I assumed must be Howard First, another straggler. “I don’t know if I want to be a part of this until you guys get your acts together.”

The Grim Reaper glided up and placed hands on both of their shoulders. “The Play is in progress, Neophytes. Come this way.” Figures Poe would be able to stay in character throughout the crisis.

But Howard shook him off. “Forget it, dude. I have strict standards when it comes to the protection of my body.”

“Is that what you were doing in that Colombian jungle last spring?” Thorndike asked. “Adhering to your strict standards?”

“Actually, no,” he replied. “I was inoculating children.” And with that bit of rampant holier-than-thou-ism, he made a beeline for the door.

Poe raised his eyebrows at me. Okay, so the scene did remind me a lot of what I’d done after he’d hit me with the water guns at my own initiation, but how was I supposed to defend the society in this case? Poe had been tricking me with super-soakers. I don’t think that explosion was a trick.

Here goes nothing. “Howard, wait!” I cried, running forward. “Look, don’t go. It’s just part of the initiation game—all of it. You should have seen the crap they pulled with me in April. They threatened to drown me, they threatened to rape me—”

“And this somehow endeared them to you?” he asked.

“Well, no, not as such but—”

“Look—uh, Glow Girl, or whatever part you’re supposed to be playing—this isn’t really my type of gig, okay?”

“Then why did you accept the tap?”

“Jungle fever?” he suggested.

Well, Kurtz, welcome to a whole new heart of darkness. “Look, I didn’t think it was my thing, either.” And my enemies would agree with that. “But it’s been—”

“Get out while you still can, man,” interrupted Graverobber. “Before any vows are taken. I wish I had. These cats don’t have the same cachet they used to.” He leaned against the wall. “Word is, the endowment’s drying up as well.”