The scene in which Nicholas de-witches Cassandra is one of my favorite in the whole series. I enjoy ritual, and here it is. If Nicholas had failed to specify all the items - her two hands, her mind, and her heart, was it? - would the ritual have failed? "This hand is no longer the recipient of my master's grace." That one surprised me. Diabolos is a dispenser of grace? What sort of grace would he - could he - give? I'm not arguing with the wording: I'm just trying to understand a point of view that is alien to me.
Once again Cassandra shilly-shallied today, when she decided to kill Adam using the doll. When she kept talking and talking - telling the doll, "You are Adam, and when you die, Barnabas will be a vampire" over and over again - I figured that it took some talking to get the wax doll ready for action. But then she started sticking the pin in, and just as she did with the Dream Curse, she didn't perform the happy dispatch immediately, but instead she had to prolong the agony. Oh, gosh, I can just see her, way back in 1795 when she was still a maid. “Yes, table, I am going to dust you. But not all at once. First one swipe...do you know who’s in charge now?...now another swipe...you still don’t understand?” and so on.
The scene between Roger and Cassandra was lovely. And even if Cassandra follows through and kills Barnabas (“Yes, Barnabas, I am going to kill you. But not all at once. First a bullet through the arm...do you know who’s in charge now?...and now a bullet through the leg...you still don’t understand?) Roger still won’t understand why Cassandra needed to use him to kill Barnabas.
Oh, by the way, Adam forgot Carolyn’s “Do not kill” instruction pretty easily, didn’t he?
