Erdedy waits for the pot delivery (p. 21)
To ensure the composure with which he sat waiting in light in his chair he focused his senses on his surroundings. No part of the insect he’d seen was now visible. The clicks of his portable clock were really composed of three smaller clicks, signifying he supposed preparation, movement, and readjustment.
Context
Hours into the wait, Erdedy tries to steady himself by attending to his surroundings, and attention this strained dissects the clock itself: each tick splits into three sub-clicks, each with its own imputed job. This is what withdrawal-grade waiting does to time in this book — the second stops being a unit and becomes a little machine you can hear working.