Diana and Matthew
make their goodbyes to Ysabeau and Marthe (who are now totally on side with
Diana now) and get in a helicopter to go to Diana’s aunts in America
Can a helicopter
cross the Atlantic? I assume it’s just taking them to the airport.
Anyway they arrive in
Madison and their aunts house - which is haunted - or magical; either way it’s
extremely nifty, fun, a little creepy and an extremely convenient source of
Deus Ex Machinae since it can do a whole lot of stuff. The house likes Matthew (of
course) and if your magical house doesn’t even keep undead blood drinking
monsters from your door, what’s the point.
They meet Emily and
Sarah - Emily is super welcoming, Sarah would rather have a squad of MAGA
hatted zombies vomiting on her porch. But Diana’s main concern is to confront
them in a rage demanding to know if they knew she was spellbound. Sarah is
horrified at the idea that she had been spellbound… but Emily suspected that
Diana’s parents were involved
Sarah is horrified -
her emotions run from high to outerspace - and Diana is devastated at the idea
that her parents thought she was such a terribad awful monster that she needed
to have her magic bound (remembering that this is generally only done to evil
witches who are terribad awful). The house steps in to give us a useful
flashback
Her parents magically
bound Diana when she was a small child to try and protect her from Knoxx who is
terribad awful and was heading over to examine her magic and discover her
specialness. Because they bind her they stop her being revealed to Knoxx.
With Diana safe, her
parents then leave because they know Knoxx will hunt them now and they leave
Diana with Emily and Sarah… Emily suspected something was going on
Diana mopes a little
but it quickly turns into this romance of awfulness because her mother talked
all about her Shadow Prince. And that’s probably why her spell binding broke.
Because they were meant to be
Hey, remember when he
craved her blood and he had to flee to Scotland in order not to murder her?
Anyone remember that? No?
Emily and Sarah have
their own angst - because Sarah is deeply upset that they didn’t tell her about
all this. She’s hurt but also somewhat guilty - thinking Rebecca (Diana’s
mother) couldn’t trust her because she’d fly off the handle and go into a rage
while Emily would be careful. I mean, we’ve barely seen these characters but…
yes? Emily’s even sensible enough not to challenge this pretty accurate
assessment of her character - but pulls out the plus of this. Rebecca trusted
her to look after her daughter - knowing she would be a passionate warrior and
carer for Diana.
This little snippet
of their beautiful relationship really makes me wish they’d appear more often
So now the concern is
for Diana to a) learn how to control her magic and b) how to defend herself.
Which I would kind of think would be the same thing but apparently not. Matthew
and Sarah keep striking sparks, and I think I’m supposed to say this is because
she has Issues about vampires (which she does, obviously) but honestly since he
keeps sticking his nose in about how to use magic defensively and what magic
works I kind of think she has a good reason to be irritated.
Apparently defensive
spells don’t work any more… and after a couple of hours of practice, Diana
makes a mistake and then decides Sarah absolutely cannot teach her because
their magic is too different. Ugh, River Song deserves better than this.
Seriously barely a few hours and Diana decides not that she needs to try harder
or try more but that Sarah simply CANNOT teach her
What’s annoying is
she may be right - Diana has Super Special magic which means she just gets to
use magic because she feels it or needs it rather than using words or focusing
or studying. And I have to say this is an utter pet hate of mine - I’m not a
fan of magic systems that basically work as “wish and it happens” but to have
everyone’s magic require study and work and then have your character have a
special shiny WishPower really annoys
Oh and Diana’s
probably inherited her dad’s ability to time travel as well. Because Special.
But, hey, time to get
to something even more ridiculous - Matthew is going to teach her self defence.
Which basically involves her running around the wood while he moves spookily
around her. This doesn’t achieve much so when he accidentally hurts her, causing
her to bleed, she has a bright idea
She waves that blood
in front of his nose, reminds us that once he asked her to walk slowly away
from him so he wouldn’t murder (hey she does remember) and then she RUNS INTO
THE FOREST
… I… I have no words. She wants to die. She has embraced death. I mean, come back Bella Swan, Elena Gilbert and even Clary Fairchild - you are all forgiven. There is officially a new protagonist who is even more stupid than you are. This is a new benchmark for bad decision making: Elena looking for werewolves in the woods on full moon, Clary jumping through portals blindly and Bella throwing herself off cliffs for hallucinations - it all pales next to this.
Unfortuna… I mean
thankfully, her magic kicks in and he doesn’t murderise her (she flies because
she can only defend herself when really under threat. And she’s also damn lucky
her magic decided to help her fly rather than, say, set Matthew on fire or
embed him in a tree).
I need a drink.
They then go back to
the house and have sex and I’m just assuming Emily and Sarah are out and don’t
get to listen to a vampire going down on their niece. We go on for more romance
and angst and Diana being sure that the vampire that just tried to eat her
would never hurt her
Miriam and Marcus
arrive to help protect everyone and Marcus and Emily are charming and friendly,
while Sarah hisses like an angry cat at Miriam. To disrupt their arguing, the
house throws a message at them from Diana’s father - a page from the book of
life. And, in case we missed this, this means her time travelling dad had the
power to access the book of life
So, who thinks we’re
going to have a time travelling adventure coming up?
Time to join the
Congregation where Baldwin is trying to distract everyone from Diana - which is
actually kind of easy because Satu is still missing and it’s easy to say she’s
kidnapped Diana and is now holding her in parts unknown. Whether she’s an ally
or captive, the focus is on finding Satu the naughty naughty witches. Gerbert
is also not present to duck his own culpability so it’s easier for Baldwin to
railroad things
The main person
pushing this is Agatha since Sophie gave her the prophecy that needs it. So
everyone can go back home to handle her own people. And Agatha goes to
Matthew’s Daemon friend Hamish to explain that Sophie made a shiny prediction
about Diana and about the surprising revelation that Sophie was born of
witches: which pretty much destroys everything they knew about interspecies
relations and, she thinks, will earn the Daemons the position and respect they
deserve.
Which I’d agree with
if we actually knew the slightest thing about Daemons. I mean so far, other
than a propensity for mental illness, all we know about Daemons is that one of
them has the ability to prophesise something: and even that may be because of
her witch ancestry. Are Daemons supernatural or just eccentric humans?
C’mon, wouldn’t it be
hilarious if the daemons were just humans who found out about vampires and
witches who both decided that rather than mess with their minds it’d be a
hilarious prank to convince them they’re supernatural as well?
Knoxx is confronted
by Satu who confronts him about killing Rebecca and Steven, how he opened them
up as he warned her against doing the same with Diana: she also reveals that
Diana was spellbound and that she has no powers any more (which will come back…
apparently). She’s pretty scathing towards Knoxx who is pretty shaken by all
these revelations.
She also tells him
about the prophecy of vampire extinction which makes Knoxx even more determined
to find Diana.
It’s time for
Dominico to step up and start mixing things for fun and chaos. Firstly he goes
to the hyper obsessed Juliette, accuses her of being obsessed with Matthew and
under Gerbert’s control and asks why she’s even staying in Venice -she can
leave, Gerbert can’t keep her there. He also gives her a file on Diana t and
suggests she can prove she isn’t obsessed with Matthew by burning it. Or she
can go hunting Diana. Either way she will be free from Gerbert…
This succeeds because
when Baldwin confronts Gerbert about invading his home, Gerbert tries to throw
Juliette as a scapegoat- and Juliette refuses to corroborate: much to his
shock.
I don’t know whether
he’s doing this because he loves Juliette and wants her to look away from
Matthew… or whether he just likes causing chaos.
Of course Juliette
doesn’t burn the file - and instead heads to Madison to stalk Diana.
Dominico also finds a
powerless Satu - and quickly kidnaps her. Afterall Baldwin claims she has Diana
- with her they can prove that’s a lie. Baldwin tries to maneuver Dominico into
handing her over but, no, Dominco likes this leverage.
Dominico may be a
crafty character… which means the writers have to realise how to write
intelligent characters
