#adows1e4

Wednesday, October 7

A day for relaxation and recreation but also a day of discoveries. 

Matthew takes Diana for a ride and when they talk about Ysabeau’s dislike of Diana, he says it’s more of her being envious or jealous of Diana than hatred.  Human Ysabeau was a seer and she was made without consent by a vampire that wanted her for a wife. Her powers and the ability to have children was robbed from her. Matthew then presents Diana with the result of her DNA test and what it shows scares her. There are just too many powers for her to grasp, but as Matthew says “These powers may never manifest, but you’ve inherited the genetic predisposition for them.”

Diana then spends some time getting to know Matthew through the books in his rooms. Darwin’s Origins in particular is full of notes and annotations, making it clear that Matthew in 1859 thought humans, daemons, witches and vampires had a common ancestor somewhere way back in time. 

Monday, October 12

Secrets, torture and rescue.

Diana is taken by a flying witch and brought to a castle-ruin where the witch, Satu Järvinen, tries to open her up to figure out her secrets and her magic. Satu fails, despite trying to make Diana doubt Matthew by telling her his only after her magic and that he’s killed Gillian. So she leaves Diana in the oubliette to get reinforcement.

Meanwhile, the vampires of Sept-Tours are looking for Diana. Reinforcement in the form of Baldwin Montclair, head of the family and tracker extraordinary, arrive from London. He’s not Matthew’s favorite sibling and there’s a bit of dominance fighting going on before Matthew uses the “Knight’s of Lazarus of Bethany”-card and Baldwin falls in line. Working together, Diana’s located and they leave in a helicopter to rescue her.

Diana is not alone in the oubliette. There are ghosts of those that died there but also her parents. She recalls the stories her mother told her and when Matthew and Baldwin find her and are unable to go down and retrieve her, she’s able to fly up.

Matthew needs to use his blood to calm Diana down during the flight back to Sept-Tours. Her body is badly bruised and burnt so she needs help. Matthew, Marthe and Ysabeau take care of her while she tells them what happened with Satu but also that Domenico and Gerbert were there and that Gerbert in particular wanted to get his hands on her and that he once upon a time owned the Ashmole manuscript. Matthew reveals he killed a woman in Jerusalem that got between him and Baldwin. 

Tuesday, October 6

It’s past midnight before Matthew returns, looking angrier than when he left. He tells Marcus he’s taking Diana to France, something Marcus feels is unfair to both Ysabeaus and Diana but Matthew’s mind is already made up.

Matthew watches a sleeping Diana, and when she answers his thoughts as if he was saying them out loud, he realizes that she can hear them, but only when she’s not conscious.

When Diana wakes up, she causes a witchwind remembering what Gillian told her about her parents and Knox’s threat. She’s feeling trapped but Matthew is able to calm her down again. He tells her they are going to France when her the phone rings. It’s her aunts. They have been calling all night, worried about Diana. When they hear what’s happened, they want her to get back home immediately but Diana says she’s going to France with Matthew. 

Diana’s trying to get out of the deal so Matt bribes her with the chance to read a very unique alchemy book he owns, Aurora Consurgens. They leave and fly to France in a private plane. 

The couple arrive by car at Sept-Tours and meet Matthew’s vampire mother Ysabeau and Marthe, an old vampire woman that’s been with the family for as long as anyone can remember. 

Friday, October 9

Hunting, teas and Knights of Lazarus.

Ysabeau takes Diana on a hunt to frighten her away from Matthew by showing her the true nature of vampires but fails. To love a vampire means accepting all parts of him so later on Diana calls her aunts to tell them about loving Matthew. They are not happy but accept and support Diana’s choice. They are much more concerned with Diana staying with Ysabeau.

Marthe shows Diana how to make her special herbal tea and makes her promise to drink one cup a day “to keep her healthy” while Ysabeau talks about the importance of names, sharing all of hers and Matthew’s.

Thursday, October 8

Uninvited guests and new abilities.

Another day spent working, feeling safe and relaxed before Matthew and Diana run into Domenico in the gardens. He tells Diana there are things that all creatures need to abide, the covenant and the congregation. Ysabeau and Marthe appears at the scene and Matthew sends Diana off with them while he continues to talk to Domenico, expecting them to keep her safe. 

Ysabeau brings Diana up to the roof, signalling the villagers to be on the look out, and explains what the covenant and the congregation are to Diana. When Domenico leaves, the women can go back down into the castle while Matthew rides off. 

When Matthew returns, he tells the women that he and Diana are returning to Oxford and that they won’t break the covenant. Diana’s having her first visions/ recollections. They are of herself as a child being told her parents were dead but also of Matthew’s past and Ysabeau crying over Philippe. Diana’s no longer willing to accept what others tell her to do like she had to when her parents died so she tells Matthew she loves him. Their discussion is cut short as Matthew needs to leave for Oxford after Marcus calls about an attempted break in at the lab so Matthew leaves immediately, leaving Diana behind. 

When Diana sees Matthew drive away, she starts crying and she can’t stop, it feels as if her whole body is turning into water and it takes Ysabeau singing to return Diana to her own body. Diana’s used witchwater for the first time. 

“Alchemy is woven into every aspect of the All Souls story from the very beginning, even down to the timings. The action of A Discovery of Witches takes place over forty days and is purposely structured to mirror the forty days of an alchemical experiment. Forty was a significant number in alchemy, as Mary Sidney pointed out to Diana when they were working in her laboratory. Mary was delighted when her own experiment with the arbor Dianae took exactly forty days to complete, ‘just as the sages promised.’”