Opening
A warning from the Congregation rips the lovers’ quiet life apart as Diana Bishop and Matthew Clairmont face the covenant that forbids them. Separated by strategy and fear, they each confront the past—through visions, histories, and hidden orders—until they finally choose open defiance and each other.
What Happens
Chapter 21: The Congregation
At Sept-Tours, Diana and Matthew spend a tranquil morning in his study with his rare copy of Aurora Consurgens. Two luminous images—a Moon Queen and a Sun King—echo the alchemical wedding of opposites and mirror their bond. Their peace shatters in the garden when Domenico Michele, a predatory vampire and old adversary, arrives as an emissary of the Congregation: a council of nine creatures. He cites the covenant barring relationships between witches and vampires, cementing Forbidden Love and Inter-species Relationships as the story’s central conflict.
Defiant, Diana refuses to accept a pact she never swears to. Ysabeau de Clermont cuts through the tension with aristocratic contempt and ushers Diana to the watchtower, where she runs up the de Clermont banner—a silver ouroboros—to warn the village. From the tower, Ysabeau recounts the Congregation’s origins during the Crusades and the creation of the covenant to prevent exposure and political entanglement, turning Prejudice, Segregation, and Intolerance into law. Below, Matthew hurls Domenico across the grounds and rides away in fury, leaving danger unresolved.
Chapter 22: A Predator, Diana
Matthew returns hours later, all warmth gone, command sharpened. As he enters, Diana is seized by a vision—her aunt Sarah Bishop terrified—followed by Matthew in Templar armor, a breakthrough in her Identity and Self-Acceptance. Matthew announces their capitulation: back to Oxford, back to distance, and she must obey to survive.
When Diana resists, he bares the truth of his species, holding her as if to feed and describing exactly how he could. The fear spikes another vision: a young Ysabeau learning that Philippe has been taken by witches. Diana answers the terror with a confession—she loves him—which stuns Matthew. Before they can resolve it, Marcus Whitmore calls: creatures have tried to break into Matthew’s Oxford lab. Matthew decides to go alone, planning to bargain with Peter Knox by renouncing Ashmole 782—and Diana—if it keeps her safe. Diana insists Knox is untrustworthy, and Matthew’s evasions highlight Secrets and Deception. He leaves; Diana flees to the watchtower, where her grief detonates her magic.
Chapter 23: Witchwater
On the tower, Diana’s power erupts as witchwater—an overwhelming torrent streaming from eyes, mouth, and hands, pulling her toward dissolution. Ysabeau and Marthe watch until Ysabeau’s ancient song steadies the flood and restores Diana. Frozen and spent, Diana is carried to Matthew’s rooms and warmed in a bath.
Afterward, Ysabeau opens the long past: Matthew’s Origins, Evolution, and Extinction. He first lives as Mathieu Roydon, a sixth‑century stonemason with a wife, Blanca, and son, Lucas, both lost to fever. Broken, he falls from a church tower; to save him from agony and the sin of suicide, Ysabeau turns him. His control—hard-won, centuries in the making—tempers a once-raging fledgling. Testing Diana, Ysabeau suggests vampirism as a solution; Marthe stops her, citing a promise to Matthew that Diana remains a witch. Pressed about the break‑in, Ysabeau confirms that a witch trespassing on vampire ground is an act of war, turning the lab incident into a targeted provocation.
Chapter 24: The Hunt
Following Matthew’s instructions to get Diana outside, Ysabeau takes her riding and quietly tests her nerve—sidesaddle and all. The true trial comes when Ysabeau hunts in full view: rabbit, fox, then a young doe. The feeding is brutal, but Diana does not flinch, and Ysabeau’s respect flickers into life. She lays out the de Clermont hierarchy: Matthew rules the household, and obedience keeps everyone alive, a stark lesson in Family, Lineage, and Belonging.
Back at the château, Diana calls her aunts. She admits she loves Matthew; after shock and warnings about the covenant, Sarah vows support—no Bishop abandons another. Buoyed by kin, Diana calls Matthew. He remains cool, refuses to say when he returns, and leaves her hurt. Determined to find answers, she turns to his study.
Chapter 25: The Knights of Lazarus
Sleepless and restless, Diana explores Matthew’s desk and discovers a hidden drawer with three bronze seals of the Knights of Lazarus of Bethany: the order’s great seal, Matthew’s personal seal (MDCl), and Philippe’s. Fresh wax on the great seal reveals the order still operates—under Matthew’s leadership. This revelation fuses scholarship and revelation, underscoring The Power of History and Memory as an active force.
Following the trail, Diana uncovers centuries of ledgers arranged by Greek letters, charting a vast clandestine network that steers money and influence across a millennium. She finds proof that the Knights absorb the Templars’ wealth and members after their suppression, solving a legendary mystery and exposing the scale of Matthew’s hidden power. Then Matthew calls with a transformed tone: he is coming home because he wants to be with her. He says, for the first time, that he loves her. Diana answers in kind. The section closes with a united decision to face the consequences together.
Character Development
These chapters strip away illusions, forcing the lovers and their guardians to choose between law and loyalty.
- Diana: Her magic surges from visions to witchwater, yoking emotion to elemental force. She claims her love for Matthew, asserts her agency, and leans on her training as a historian to decode his secrets and the structures that threaten them.
- Matthew: Driven by fear and duty, he weaponizes his predatory nature to protect Diana—then abandons isolation to choose partnership. His past as Mathieu Roydon reframes his control, grief, and leadership.
- Ysabeau: From adversarial matriarch to fierce protector, she tests, teaches, and finally respects Diana. Her song saves Diana; her history humanizes the de Clermont legacy and the wound of Philippe’s loss.
Themes & Symbols
The covenant transforms private desire into political defiance. What begins as attraction becomes a deliberate rebellion against codified segregation, exposing how prejudice sustains power. Secrets—personal, familial, institutional—drive both danger and discovery: Matthew’s lab, Diana’s visions, Ysabeau’s past, and the Knights’ ledgers all show how concealment shapes the present.
History operates as living memory. Ysabeau’s account collapses centuries into character, while Diana’s archival hunt reveals a medieval order still steering modern outcomes. Symbols concentrate meaning: Aurora Consurgens’ Sun King and Moon Queen prefigure a volatile alchemical union; witchwater channels Diana’s unfathomed strength through grief; the Knights’ seals embody Matthew’s hidden identity, duty, and reach.
Key Quotes
“I’ve fallen in love with you.”
Diana’s confession punctures Matthew’s strategy of fear and distance. It reframes the conflict: not whether she can endure him, but whether they will face the world’s laws together.
“No Bishop ever turns her back on another Bishop.”
Sarah’s declaration anchors Diana in a lineage of loyalty. Family becomes counter‑law—a protection that rivals and morally eclipses the covenant’s coercion.
Matthew could feed on me—he told me how.
Though not a single line of dialogue, the moment crystallizes the predator–beloved dynamic. By naming the danger, the scene exposes the limits of fear as control and forces Matthew to see Diana’s resolve.
“I love you.”
Matthew’s final admission resolves his internal war between command and capitulation. It commits his power—personal and institutional (the Knights)—to a shared future, raising the stakes from private risk to global consequence.
Why This Matters and Section Significance
This arc pivots the novel from simmering mystery to open conflict. The Congregation’s warning and the covenant’s history turn a romance into an act of civil disobedience in a hidden world. Diana’s witchwater marks her as an unpredictable force capable of breaking old orders, while Matthew’s acceptance of love over isolation aligns the Knights’ centuries of influence with their cause. By merging intimate confession with revelations of secret institutions, these chapters widen the lens: the lovers’ choice now threatens a long‑standing geopolitical balance among creatures—and promises to remake it.