[ Usually, he would have had an immediate response to the Troupe Master saying something like that. But for reasons known only to himself, the only indication he gives of having heard Grimm's joke is a quiet exhalation of breath; something between a sigh and a huff.

He turns his attention to the seal, not looking at the other bug; tracing its intricacies in his mind. An incomplete seal...he hadn't, in truth, expected this one to work. There were others in his laboratory - stronger, completed, more complex - and he had devised ways to unlock them quickly at need.

This one...would have to be unraveled, unmade. It had no fast solution.

(History will repeat itself. Something flawed and broken, becoming more than it was supposed to be.) ]

This one was incomplete. [ A pause. ] I did not expect it to work.

Unraveling it is a simple task. But it will take a little more time.

[ He doesn't wait for any possible response to that; he simply begins, bending his will to the task.

He doesn't even need to look at the door, but he does so anyway. (It's a learned movement, something that has become familiar to do; turn your head to look, even with an omnipotent will, a mind that can sense in all intricacies whatever is happening before it, because...it feels better to do so, somehow, in some small way.

Mortal shells were such strange things.) ]