Real fight his ass. The magic of the Athenaeum might not respond to Strange, but he's smarter than the specters and ghosts of it as well, which makes him less susceptible to having bullshit thrown at him if he can think his way out of it, which is mostly why Lambert was hoping to accomplish. Hitting Strange too hard and fast to give him time to come up with anything was mostly the strategy here, or maybe dumping him in the water -- but moving him out of the glyph would just give him a chance to turn to smoke, and the leeches can't keep doing their job.

As his mind's racing for another story, the witcher abruptly finds he can't breathe.

Could Strange do that before? Lambert sure didn't know he could do that before. It would be pretty impressive if it also wasn't trying to kill him. Unfortunately, while Lambert has many talents, breathing when its actively being restricted from him isn't one of them. You also kind of need air to speak, and Lambert discovers it's a pretty bad time when he reflexively tries to breathe and it feels like daggers knifing his lungs. He should be able to hold his breath for longer, but with the magical inducement his vision starts to darken in little enough time, perception narrowing to the band of heat around his arm.

Peridot's gift, still charged from Ignatius' attack before and crackling with magic energy Lambert hasn't drawn from. He could pull from it now, turn into dragon form, something with more of an advantage --

Lambert is straight up swinging his arm around to beat Strange's face in with that bracer instead. Fuck magic, physical violence is where it's at!