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It is a whirlwind and the world spins. Jeremiah's head does as well, familiar and terrible, that same stomach dropping sensation that comes with him fainting or having a seizure. This is not the time, not when-

He blinks, having moved himself without realising it out of the silver hall and down a hall close to the plum parlor. The garden is not far, he thinks, because it was mentioned but he tilts his head to look back towards the silver hall.

His head still spins for some reason when he looks that way and his head bows a moment to catch his breath. He needs to go back, to help, to do what needs to be done, but he needs to gather himself.

After all, this was the first time he had been out of the house since the seizures had mostly stopped.

Jeremiah stills a moment, the voice familiar and he turns on his heel to see the Eldritch Gentleman- No, this is Liam Noor. There is no mask.

"Mister Noor," he says in greeting, posture shifting immediately. Jeremiah straightens and, for the second time this night, removes his mask (it's job has been done). This time there is no replacement and he just puts it on his side.

Except that he knows, quite well, that he should be on guard but there are manners and courtesy and he has them even if the world burns.

"What can I do for you?"

"Knowing what I do now ..." Jeremiah raises a hand and tugs the broken crown off of his head. He turns it over in hands once, then twice as he looks it over. "No, I do not think terribly of you but-"

He looks back up, head tilting.

"You'll have to forgive me but I'm not sure what you mean by that. Is it because you would do what is necessary to protect your husband? Your family? To see them safe and whole?" As he would, without a doubt, himself.

"Or is this another one of those things that I've forgotten?" Of which there were several. Jeremiah's far too aware of the fact he's been at this before with the familiarity others assume with him. The strange sense of deja vu and feelings he cannot place.

"Yet if this is not what you meant then what did you mean? This could not have been meant for your friends. This seems like-" A breath, a small huff. "There are rules and patterns and it has grown outside of your control but within it at the same time. You're playing parts in your own creation." If that made any sense because it was what he felt like after this evening.

Jeremiah blinks, the glow of his eyes shifting and darkening. His head tilts and his expression does soften. "I can understand that," he says and gestures with a hand, his fingers spread and making motion to all of which surrounded them.

The entirety of other ashdown included.

"... yet I'm still not even sure. You say I am your age but ..." Jeremiah looks Liam's face over. "You have been walking this path with your husband for what is likely longer than I've been alive." He pauses. "This time." As he still operates that this is not his first time and it may not even be his last.

Jeremiah cannot offer it to Liam even if he wants to. The spark is not there. There is no remembrance. There is nothing. There is only his only knowledge, his own assumptions and thoughts of everything that is going on and all from this time around.

There is the sick sound of things falling apart in his mind as well that he can never shake.

"It is our cage as much as it is yours-" another breath, "-his." His eyes search Liam's face and something twists in his gut. It's familiar, not at all unlike when he felt as if he had failed-

Not the time.

"I do understand but I don't remember." This actually pains him in a way. "We were likely friends, for all that I know, and I cannot afford you that because I'm caught within the cycles and you are outside them." Which brought so many things to mind, things that he had not been sure about but now he thought- They were looking at it all wrong.

"You were trying to save us," he says quietly, "but instead we're caught."

Jeremiah crouches to help pick up the scarf, fingers brushing against the fabric. He realizes very quickly he has not said the right thing, that clearly he does not know, but the words still settle into his mind.

"Wait," he says, "one more moment, please." As Liam is right and the servants likely do want blood as things did not go as planned (not what was wanted, he was sure). "If we came of age together, I was your contemporary and do not remember ..." He feels as if he should- That this important.

He thinks suddenly of Ashdown. It is caught in the cycle as well but other ashdown? It seems as if it is a constant. Thirty-two thousand years. "It was before all of this happened, before the cage, before the cycles started, but why-" he stops a moment and lets out a breath, "why were people dying?"

... and did he have a role but Jeremiah expected no answer for that but he remembers too well the sounds of a body protesting and then falling silent. It still haunted him.

"I don't," he admits, "but when I do-" He straightens again, a frown on his face as much as there is uncertainty.

The thoughts are there and now he does not know what to do with them.

"We'll talk again and maybe we will be contemporaries." Jeremiah gives Liam a courteous bow, eyes glinting as he raised his head to look at him. "Or further apart." The truth was that things had changed from when he had first found himself in this place. What they had thought was the case was far from it.

"Thank you for your time," he says. "Take care of yourself, Mister Noor. You and your husband both. It's time to go fetch mine." With a polite smile he straightens up and turns to leave.