The next morning, Diana wants to go riding and Matthew once again treats her like a small child who has to be told what to do and when to do it.  He thinks she’s too tired for riding, because he knows so much more about her condition and her abilities and her limitations than Diana herself, amiright?

Seriously, this is how you treat a toddler, not a grown woman.

Matthew gives her new, ridiculously expensive riding gear and we get to suffer through an exacting description of Diana changing clothes.  When is the plot going to come back?  Why have we paused the book for a wish-fulfillment travel story about staying in a castle with a handsome noble?  That’s all this is.  And it’s not like we had something major that we need to take a break from, nothing that required a quiet few chapters to recover.

So much pointless horse stuff as they get ready to go riding.  Even though Diana demonstrates competence around the horses, in checking them over and checking her equipment and all that, Matthew still refuses to treat her like and adult and even gets huffy when she gets in the saddle by herself.  *gasp*  Oh, the indignity of a woman who can climb into a saddle alone!  Seriously, Matthew, nut up and back off.  This isn’t sweet or showing concern.  He’s hovering over her and smothering her with unneeded ‘protection’ from every single thing in the world, even stairs, and he’s doing it by controlling her every movement and decision.  That’s not well-intentioned concern; it’s a blatant disregard for her wishes and independence. 

They ride horses.  It’s dull as everything else.  Along the way, Diana asks why Ysabeau hates witches so much.  She’s jealous, because before she turned she was a Seer and young enough to still have kids.  When she turned, she lost both abilities, and since witches have foresight abilities, she hates them. 

Her maker didn’t ask permission first.” Matthew’s face darkened. “He wanted her for a wife, and he just took her and turned her into a vampire.

…So, when a vampire turns another, he comes the new vampire’s “father,” but in this case…the guy wanted to marry his “daughter”?  He basically raped his daughter into being his wife?  Jee, thanks book, I really didn’t need that thrown in on top of all the other bullshit. 

Furthermore, even though Matthew is all upset about it…that’s pretty much all we get on the matter.  Here Ysabeau has this horrible story to being turned, but all her resentment comes from not being able to have biological kids?  Way to brush over what is basically an incest-rape story and replace it with the tired old “all women want babies” bullshit.

I mean, fine, lots of people (women and men) want babies.  However.  Priorities.  The text really shouldn’t brush over one tragedy for the other.

They ride some more and it turns out Diana is using her magic powers to make the horse go faster…somehow.  That poor horse!  Maybe?  Actually, no consideration is ever given to the horse and no attempt is made to find out if the horse is okay or not.  She’s quite literally been pushed faster than she can physically go, and…to preserve my sanity, I’m going to assume the magic kept her from falling over dead of exhaustion, too.  Even though this book clearly doesn’t give a shit about horses except when it comes to the ‘fun’ parts of riding.

“You row with your eyes closed—I’ve seen you. And you walk with them closed, too. I always suspected that magic was involved.

We saw her walk with her eyes closed once.  Same for rowing.  We’re nineteen chapters in and there’s been plenty of walking, so if this was supposed to be a big deal, show that to us.

Well, they move on from that quick enough and Matthew decides to show her the results of her DNA test.  I guess he brought them with him on their riding trip because…reasons.

He tells her that she has not only every known power in existence, not only control over all four elements, but also powers that they’ve never seen or heard of before.  Basically, she’s a walking deux ex machina who will continue to do absolutely nothing and let Matthew control her every action.

And then, once again, we just move on from that.  He just drops this bombshell on her and her reaction is “huh, that’s really odd.  Let me state that I’m scared, show no indication of fear, and then go riding some more.”  What is the point of any of this?

This whole book could basically be summed up with that question.  “Why are you doing this?”