The condition of the townsfolk was particularly interesting. Could someone be manipulating their thoughts? But not the thoughts of the others stuck here. That was interesting information. "Perhaps we are meant to determine the details of this...peculiarity ourselves, and whatever force brings us here manipulates the minds of the natives to make certain we do?" He tsked slightly. "Regardless, I cannot condone manipulating minds in such a way."
He considered his next words very carefully. "He was alone, and young, and consumed in his own good intentions and hubris. I blamed him for a long time, for my birth and his abandonment, but in the end my hatred was just as foolish as his initial reaction." He spoke quietly, almost reverentially. "In the fullness of time, vengeance is rarely ever worth the price you must pay for it." He thought of the terror in little William's eyes as he'd snapped the boy's neck, and Elizabeth's eyes as he'd murdered her, and finally Victor's as the life went out of him. His eyes closed and his jaw set. "Mine certainly was not."
"We are trapped here?" His eyes opened and one eyebrow rose at that. "I won't pretend to understand how such a thing is possible, but given that I went from the Arctic to this odd library full of blank books and statues that move like men, I certainly do not find it hard to believe." This was all so surreal, but he believed what Claire was telling him.
"I certainly can," he chuckled. "Just so long as the townspeople do not chase me with torches. I have had about enough of that, in my time."