[Claude moves aside just long enough for her to check, before peeking back through the telescope himself. He takes a minute or two to really get a good look at it and understand what he's seeing. It's... frightening, really, and he hasn't felt that way since he saw an entire fortress be decimated in a pillar of light. No amount of his scheming or strategising is easily going to get them out of something like this, something so ridiculously beyond him, and their lives could be snuffed out just as quickly as all those at Merceus.

Still, he doesn't show it besides a slight tension in his jaw, and by the time he draws back to regard Cecelia, it's gone again.]

...So, I understand our role in helping restore magic to the land... But what caused that calamity in the first place? And what's the best shot we have at fixing it, if it's already happened?

[A tiny, cynical part of him has to wonder if they're just being strung along in freezing time and delaying the inevitable, but he opts not to listen to it.]