Carefully stashing magical items in the chest of drawers, along with labels, Riadh wondered how long Dale would be gone. Mistress Mildred’s routine was something Riadh had become comfortably familiar with. She would often leave him out and about for a couple of days at a time. In between, he was in the box for a week or two. Time passed differently in that state. It wasn’t really sleep nor was it boredom per se, just a state of waiting and recharging.
Out here, time was measurable. The clock on the wall indicated Dale had been gone two hours. That was a rather insignificant amount of time in the grand scheme of things, but it made Riadh feel anxious. To have one master die and now be owned by another was unsettling. There were indications Dale was kind and generous but only a couple of da
