The next morning, Matthew is perfectly fine, while Diana is still moving slowly thanks to the after-effects of losing so much blood.  Unless there’s actually some other consequence of being eaten; they haven’t really said what she’s so slow over.

You know, there’s a quote floating around tumblr (and other places) about how male heroes are heroic by virtue of what they can win, and females are heroic by virtue of how much they can suffer.  Here we have Matthew, perfectly hale and healed, ready to go off and fight in this ill-defined war.  And then there’s Diana, the invalid that everyone flutters around while assuring her that she’s ‘brave.’  Both are coming out of the exact same fight, but Matthew goes to fight another day, while Diana’s entire contribution is focused on the injures she’s suffered. 

The house suddenly adds another room because it expects a visitor.  Because the house is the best character in this novel.  But we spend barely any time at all on that before Matthew and Diana drive out to where Juliette died.  No, I don’t know why.  Diana just spontaneously decided she wanted to.

“After La Pierre, Satu left you broken and uncertain.

How?  What was she uncertain about?  What changed in her actions and thoughts after that encounter?  I guess it’s hard to tell when a thoughtless lump of inactivity is ‘broken’ or not.

They get to the spot where the battle happened and see that a big giant oak tree died, because Diana ‘took’ the life from it and gave it to Matthew, and then talk some about how deep and meaningful death is.  Then they go home.  That’s it. 

I bitched my whole way through Hunger Games about how they ignored the implications and fallout of taking another life.  This is not the way to fix that.  You cannot shove in a few lines that are about as deep as a hipster and call that a good day’s work.  Killing has consequences, and that means it goes beyond just talking about stuff a little bit and claiming that you feel bad.  Consequences change your actions.  Without that change, a book can claim ‘bad feelings’ until it’s blue in the face, but it’s still meaningless.

What do I mean about ‘action-changing consequences’?  There’s lots of options.  Nightmares (provided that they make you cranky, nervous, or sleep-deprived the next day), obsessively thinking about or talking about the event, changes in mood or behavior, withdrawing from others, obsessively seeking out company, changing one’s behaviors to either avoid a repeat situation or ‘atone’ for the killing, depression, any of these would be actual consequences.  Standing around and saying “I feel bad about that” and then going on with business as usual is not a consequence.

 They go tell the rest of the family that they intend to time travel to hide.  Rest of the family is not happy.

I had some sympathy for their amazed disbelief. Last night, while I was lying in bed, my own reaction had been much the same. First I’d insisted that it was impossible, and then I’d asked for a thousand details about precisely when and where we were going.

Wow.  It’s Diana’s power, but Matthew is the one deciding when, how, and why they’re going to use it.  She’s just a tool that he’s directing.  It might as well be his power.

Apparently they want to time travel so that Diana can have the time and space to learn to use her powers.  There’s four chapters left in the book, and she’s just now settling in to learn how to use her powers.  This is something that should be happening at the start of a book, not the end.

They sit and talk about what the others will do while they’re gone.

Um…what?  It’s time travel.  Diana goes back in time, learns her powers, and then comes back to the present, just a second after she left.  As far as the rest of the group is concerned, it should be instantaneous.  Untrained Diana, blink, trained Diana.  Plus, half the reason they’re doing this is so that they don’t waste time in the present with training.  So why do they need to send everyone off to pass time while Diana trains in the past?

I’m so confused.

Hey, remember that daemon woman who talked to Diana waaaaaay back at the start of the book?  The one that showed up for a single chapter and then was never heard from again, for like 400 pages?  That woman’s son and daughter-in-law show up at the door quite randomly.  This doesn’t make me think ‘oh, continuity!’ so much as ‘wow, that was awkward.’

These two are Nathan and Sophie, and both are daemons.  Much is made over the fact that Sophie is pregnant.  I don’t know why, I guess just because this book has a serious hard-on for babies.  Sophie’s parents were witches even though she’s a daemon, so maybe her kid will be another sparkly half-breed, too.

There is much dithering about pointless stuff before we get to the point, which is that Sophie has been having premonitions about Diana.  She’s also got a statue of the goddess to give to her.

No, really, a statue of ‘the goddess.’  What goddess?  The Wiccan’s goddess?  Because this statuette is ancient, whereas Wicca’s only about 100 years old.  So what goddess?

Well, Matthew recognizes it as a chess piece from a set he had way back when.  So…not a goddess?  Then through a disconnected series of statements, they decide to go time-walking on Halloween night, which is next week. 

The house interrupts by banging doors, and one of the ghosts (the same one that was with the goddess at Matthew’s almost-death) gives her a poppet.  This ghost turns out to be Bridget Bishop, and I think the poppet is supposed to help her go back in time.  It’s…got one of Ysabeau’s earrings in it?  Which is from the same time as the chess piece, and they need three items from the same time period to guide them back, and really, this is all getting more than a little contrived.  Bridget just happened to know this would happen, and thus saved the earring?  And Sophie’s family saved the chess piece through generations just to give it to her?  Why?  Because Diana is of cosmic importance and the universe just willed it to be so?  Uhg.