Regardless of what anyone said, he was always alone.

No one knew him, no one understood him. No one would have missed him if he'd suddenly dropped off the face of the earth.

Even Niece didn't really care.

Quixana. That was his name, he had to remember that. Quixana was his name, not Quixote. Those creatures he'd created – because he was lonely. Because he'd manifested companions to make himself feel better, to hide it. Subconsciously, at least. But he

knew now, he knew he was lonely. Alone, always alone. Alone. There were no windmills to battle, no damsel to save. He was done grasping at straws. Mr. Quixana was finished. Spent, exhausted. He was ready to die.

Three days of thinking about it ended with this conclusion: Death would only be another illusion, another fantasy.

He sent his niece to fetch a lawyer for his will, because there was nothing else to do. Sancho Panza came by now and again, but Mr. Quixana didn't believe anymore. He was always alone, even when he was with his friends. Even if they were his friends, built

on the stepping stones to his fantasy-world.

"I'm all alone," he whispered to himself, flipping through the pages of a book he once found exciting.

"Not quite. You're never alone," said a voice from behind his armchair. If he turned around, he couldn't quite see who it was, but he knew.

"Go away, Freston. I don't feel like talking to you now. You don't exist."

"I think I do."

"You can't exist. It isn't rational. I'm tired, now. Please leave. You've beaten me."

"Life is never rational, Don Quixote. You of all people should know that."

Don Quixote sighed. He was done here. It didn't matter anymore. "Goodbye. I won't see you again, Freston."

"You are far gone," Freston tutted.

"What could you mean?" Don Quixote asked, but he was barely curious.

"Why, your disease? You are dying because you are so sane it hurts to look at you."

Don Quixote was taken aback. Sane? "I am sane for the first time. Niece has helped me become so. And I would hope to die sane."

"Sane is not always a good thing," Freston reminded him. "That niece of yours – she has a narrow mind. She is so impossibly sane that she can't even imagine what it would be like to imagine. You were wonderful, Don Quixote, one of the best I've seen in

centuries. It is a pity to see a wonderful mind like that go to ruin."

"I'm finished. I'm alone. I'm all alone. I always have been," Don Quixote said, almost as if he was forcing himself to think that.

"Whatever you say." And the sorcerer, Quixana's rival for years, was gone. No one would ever see him again.

Mr. Quixana was alone.