It strikes Daniel immediately after he says it (took him long enough), and his bad habit of thinking aloud springs painfully back into play.

"You're not as powerful here, are you?" he says, slowly, and with the creeping understanding of why Nick keeps issuing casual threats without actually following them up. "Parlor tricks, that's what you've been reduced to. You can't access the full range of your abilities. And thanks to the Rift, you can't do anything about that. You're stuck here like the rest of us."

It only occurs to him after he says it, of course, that he might want to do a lot less deducing out loud and a lot more shutting up.