Lemm has never bothered much with perfect timekeeping; in the City of Tears it's useless to think in terms of day and night, and though he suspects in its prime there was a cicadian rhythm to things, nowadays it's just him and his relics and he quite appreciates being able to keep to his own schedule.

But he knows it's been a week, give or take, because he has not stopped thinking about meeting the Hollow Knight since it happened. He very well might have dreamed the whole thing if it wasn't for the punctured cleaning cloth, which - just to prove to himself he isn't losing his grip on reality - now takes up a permanent residence on the shelf behind the ranked badges.

Right now, he is taking a tiny brush to the details on a King's Idol, delicately cleaning out the grooves and edges until it's as pale as the day it was made. Things might as well be as normal as they always have been.

...But they are not. Something has changed since a little while before he met the Hollow Knight, and Lemm is becoming so on edge wishing he knew what that when the elevator activates his hand slips and almost takes a chip out of the idol. Lemm goes very still and fixes his eyes on the corridor through the open door.