There is a change. The fog seems to shrink from him, gathering instead around the dreamer, ropy tendrils twining around them with proprietary anxiety. The Archivist observes this with his usual detachment, his eyes tracing the fog's shifting movements as if searching for a pattern, his eyes also watching the dreamer. It does not surprise him when the dreamer watches him back. The recognition, the horror, both are the Archivist's due.

It doesn't surprise him, but it makes him uneasy.

The Archivist doesn't feel uneasy. He doesn't feel anything; he only observes, sees, knows. But there is an intense dislike, a revulsion of the fog that does not belong to the dreamer, and does not belong to the Archivist. He does not know where it comes from, but he knows it is there. He lifts one hand, slow and experimental, and pushes it forward. He watches the fog recoil, and somewhere, there is satisfaction. Good.