The flashing could be dismissed for anything, but the fact that the boy and the puppy(?) disappeared might mean it was an illusion?
I still regret not being able to question Arvis about glowing eyes.
There's a lot of possible explanations for the puppy and vanishing. Puppy noises probably wouldn't have been hard to fake for someone like him, and he was pretty distracted to the urchin might have just slipped away.
Alternatively, shapechanging hypno-dopplechameleon.
Seyena wouldn't be able to survive Ernest if she tried.
That's kind of what I mean though. Valor isn't going to risk Seyena over some guy who he honestly doesn't know that well. The bigger question is why Chris? Losing him isn't really going to cripple the group. The only thing he can do mechanically that no one else can is open doors in a single turn. As for character-wise, sure, he gets along OK with everybody, but again, losing him isn't going to be as big a blow to the rest like it would be if it were Gregor that got poisoned. So... why Chris? Is Ernest really that scared of him? O.o
Maybe because he's a spy and his former pupil/minion? I mean, if a mage was going to try to weaken a group, it might make sense for them to try to take out their counterpart mage amongst the enemy, who was also their former underling before betraying them. Makes less sense in terms of priority targets or even specialty (you'd expect an assassin to be good at not getting assassinated, and a mage to be resistant to magery), but it might make a lot of sense in terms of meta-countering (now we have no one who knows how Ernest thinks), cleaning up after himself, exacting revenge, and so on.
Alternatively, he just considers you the subtlest and thus most dangerous to leave around. If Gregor and Alex are still alive, they're not going to be able to do much except by charging the front door. If Chris is alive, you're never going to know where he is or what he's doing, which means Prixima (or anyone important, himself included) might just suddenly drop dead one day. Really can't have that.
Ninja'd by Sith duels.