Afterward I wanted to go straight to Matthew’s study and start examining Aurora Consurgens, but he convinced me to take a bath first.

Diana, sweetheart, you need to eat your lunch and take a bath and then go play with your pretty books.  There’s a good dear.  *pat on the head*  Maybe if you’re a really good girl, you can have a snack, too!  Oh, aren’t you just so precious, pretending to be an adult and all.

Those on the first bookshelf were so ancient that I couldn’t bear to think about what they contained—the lost works of Aristotle, perhaps?

Yes, do hammer in the fact that Matthew has unspeakably valuable works of literature, lost to the world of man, which could mean major advances in our understanding of history…and he’s totally hiding them in his castle.

Gutenberg’s Bible

Oh, and all of Matthew’s 600 year-old-and-older books?  Just sitting out on a shelf.  He’s got a GUTENBURG’S BIBLE JUST SITTING ON A SHELF.

DAMNIT, AUTHOR, YOU ARE A HISTORIAN, YOU SHOULD KNOW HOW IMPORTANT IT IS TO PROTECT ANTIQUE BOOKS!

HEAT!  HUMIDITY!  DUST!  SMOKE FROM THE NEARBY FIREPLACE!  With a special emphasis on those first two, since he’s basically keeping these books in a tower attic!  That bible should be a pile of vellum scraps by now, and the very thought of such a valuable piece of history being treated like that makes me cry a little inside.

Next she finds what is basically an ARC of Darwin’s Origins, which has Matthew’s notes all in the margins.  We spend several pages with her puzzling through them.  The end result: nothing we didn’t already know from previous chapters.

Which is odd in itself.  The book is 120 years old, and none of Matthew’s theories and questions have changed in over a century?  I mean, Darwin was a brilliant man of his time, but his work was hardly definitive.  We’ve been adding to, modifying, and debunking his theories ever since they came out.  But instead of keeping up with modern scientific advances in behavioral biology, etc, we just keep coming back to Darwin as the final word on everything.  And that’s just not how science works.  (And besides, Darwin’s work hardly came out of the blue.  There were a lot of people around that time either working towards or already holding similar theories.  They just didn’t get famous.)

Matthew and Diana talk some more about how he thinks that all the humanoid-shaped creatures with nearly-identical everything who can interbreed with each other might actually have a common ancestor somewhere down the evolutionary line.  Yes, how strange that is.

Seriously, it’s like expressing shock that a horse and a zebra might be part of the same genus.  It’s possible, of course.  We used to think people of different races had evolutionary differences and that they were literally different species.  But that was the result of centuries of social conditioning and preconceptions.  If creatures are suffering under the same ideas, well, it would be nice to see their society.  Right now, we have nothing to compare Diana’s shock to, nothing for Matthew’s work to stand out from.  It’s just hanging there in the wind, demanding that we see it as special.

“Are all vampires as fond of wine as you are?” […] “You drink it all the time, and you never get the slightest bit tipsy.”

That doesn’t count for much, since Diana drinks it all the time and also never gets tipsy.  Seriously, can’t we go one chapter without having three different vintages described to us?

After dinner, we find out that Matthew and Ysabeau are both perfect, more than spectacular, makes Fred Astair look like a clutz dancers.  Because that was really necessary.  Rich, immortal, world-traveled, wine-drinking, brilliant, respected, has-every-book-ever vampires aren’t enough.  No, that’s all not special enough.  Matthew’s hat has room for a few more special sparkles on it!  Quick, what other inconceivably perfect talents can we give him?  Why not hockey?  Axe throwing?  Natting?  Sailing? Dorodango-making?  Oil painting?  Hey, maybe he can read to blind, terminal cancer children on the weekends, too.  You know, when he’s not off playing Superman and rescuing bags of kittens from evil villains.

“Relax,” he murmured into my ear. “You’re trying to lead. Your job is to follow.”

I hate you so much, book.  I especially hate the way that once Diana gives up all thought and control, she’s happily swept in Matthew’s dancing.  It’s like the message of this ‘feminist’ book is “girls, just give up all control over your own life and let a man do everything for you.  You’ll be rewarded with perfect happiness if you do.”

And flying.  Since in the process of surrendering herself to a man, she also learns how to fly.

“You’re telling her what to do. It’s not your job.”

That’s right, Ysabeau!  You can’t tell another woman what to do!  That’s a man’s job!

Both Matthew and Diana make much of how Diana’s witchy powers are hers to use or not use, however she likes, and I nearly gag on the hypocrisy of Matthew defending her wishes and decisions.  Hey, Matthew, how about her right to refuse medicinal drugs, eh?

“Did you know that your mouth puckers when you sleep? You look as though you might be displeased with your dreams, but I prefer to think you wish to be kissed.”

Yes, go right ahead and assume you can read her unconscious mind, assume that gives you free reign to force sexual contact on her.  Because that’s not creepy or disturbing or illegal or nothing, right?  No, you’re a man, so you can just assume things about a woman’s body, then blame said woman for the result.  I mean, it’s not like you need to talk to a woman and find out if she wants to be kissed or not.  She’d only lie anyway, right?  Right?

NO.

And even when Diana starts to protest awake-kissing, he forces it on her anyway, to the point of not letting her talk at all.  She clearly starts to say ‘no,’ so he decides the way to fix all this is to take away her capacity for speech.  After all, forced silence is the same as permission, right?  She’s not saying ‘no,’ so that counts, right?

NO I’M NOT RIGHT, STOP ASSAULTING DIANA AND THEN BLAMING HER FOR IT.

The fact that she ends up liking it is not relevant.  Enjoyment and consent are not the same thing.  In fact, people will quite often say ‘no’ to things that they enjoy, and they have the right to do that.

But most of all”—I rubbed the tip of my nose gently against his—“I like the way you smell.”

What an awesome romance, y’all.  In Diana’s list of “why I like Matthew,” the top item is smell.  It’s the same for him liking her.  That’s all this relationship is based on.  Scent. 

Matthew tucks her into bed and sings her a lullaby.  Because when has he ever treated her like an adult?