In the moment that it appears Stephen has been drawn back into the dream, Vazeiros smiles, pleased and indulgent. His carnivore-sharp teeth flash as he moves closer, bringing the book nearer to Stephen's eager hands.

The smile falls when Stephen pulls himself out again, vexingly adroit in a place he should be scrambling to understand, much less manipulate. Frustration prickles through him, through the dream, a fuzzy, buzzing static radiating almost palpably off of the environment.

Still, Vazeiros regards Stephen with an unconcerned impassivity.

"You speak on a relationship you do not, cannot understand, Stephen Strange," he explains, patient, as though to a child. "You are incapable of the selflessness fatherhood asks of men.

"Besides," he shifts now, eyes hardening, tone icing over, suddenly dangerous, "Have you been any gentler with the young women in your care?"

The drow leans in, moving more quickly than any real person ought to, and pins Stephen in place with the red glare of his one good eye.

"Did you think to use my daughter to make good your mistakes, wizard? To mold another young witch, but to get it right, this time?"

If Stephen has an answer to the question, Vazeiros doesn't wait for it. He throws the book at Stephen's face, then snatches the sorcerer's hands when he brings them up to fend it off, circling each hand in a vice grip. The tome drops heavily between them, forgotten. Vazeiros drags Stephen forward by his implacable grip on his fists, putting them nose to nose.

"How long," he hisses now, somehow looming over Stephen, dream-logic drawing him taller than he's ever been, "before you leave her buried under a mountain?"

He closes his hands around Stephen's, crushing, and the library fills with the sound of cracking bone.