"Not like that," Fletch clarified, but he didn't seem particularly concerned that Theo had misunderstood him. He fell back into the chair for the thousandth time, rested his forehead in his hand, and rubbed at his face. There was no sense in arguing with a man so far gone on a deliriant, nor with one who couldn't hear what he had to say. Nevertheless, he said it, if only to himself: "You never lost him."
The days passed more or less the same: a blur of slow boredom punctuated by feverish conversations. Fletch took up the task of administering the medicine every quarter day, though his fellow bodyguards relieved him in between so he could rest. Oftentimes, though, he refused to return to his quarters, and several times he fell asleep in that chair with the book against his chest. He'd been smart to select men for the rotation who were lenient to this sort of behavior. None of them said a damned word to the Baron — at least, that he could tell. None of them commented on the nature of the book, either, though Ash snickered when he caught sight of one of the drawings.
On one such night, when the other men had long since gone to bed at his insistence, Fletch lay slumped in the chair, arms hung limp and head lolled to one side. He'd made the mistake of having a nightcap, and in the deafening silence of Theo's room, he'd nodded off. He thought he dreamed it: the tick-tack-tick-tack of claws on the wooden floor, accompanied by a soft sniff and a girl's giggle. Theo's bed shifted and groaned as though it carried some other weight, and his blankets rustled. "Is it time yet?" Fletch murmured in his sleep, unaware that Theo's room was now host to two unbidden occupants.
