Chapter 26

Wen waited until the maid had left before he made his way to the guest room. Day had only occupied it a few weeks before he had abruptly decided it made more sense to be sharing a bed and had since shared Wen's.

Wen knew he should have searched this room weeks ago, right when Day had gone missing. To be fair, he had done a quick search several times. But he hadn't seriously sat in the room and searched every possible square inch like he should have. He had looked everywhere else, done everything else, except for this.

Wen was nauseous. With every step he felt the bile rising in his throat, the world slightly tipping. He gripped the door handle and shakily turned it, shoving the door open and stepping inside. 

Why was this so difficult? It was his guest room. Day hadn't been inside for weeks. Months, probably. It was mostly empty anyway, save for the occasional odd object haphazardly strewn behind.

The sun shone in a bright stream through the window, and Wen felt sicker.

For a split second, Wen was 10. Again in a room, again desperate for the sun to stay in its place just a little longer.

"She's gone," one of his numerous nannies had stated. "It's wasteful to keep her things in this room, like some silly shrine to her. Take whatever you want out, then it will be cleaned." Wen had spent the entire day lying on the carpet in the middle of the room, not looking through any of his mother's things, watching the sun slowly set through the windows. When evening came, a nanny came and picked him up. He went without a fight. As she carried him to bed, she shut the door behind her. The next time it opened, there was no trace of his mother inside. That was the last time anyone had mentioned her.

Wen shook the thought off. Now was not the time for this. He stepped past an old tennis shoe he was certain he had never seen Day wear, and towards the bed. He dropped to his hands and knees to peer underneath, but found he couldn't see anything past the water that had begun to well in his eyes, so settled for vigorously sweeping his arms around to pull everything out.

An old jacket and some crumpled-up papers. Wen took a deep breath and forced himself to calm enough to read the papers. They were covered in Day's messy scrawl, and most of it was indiscernible. But after a few moments, Wen was able to piece together the gist of it—these were scratch papers, ones Day must have used as he put together his list of possible threats almost a year ago. Wen immediately tensed at the memory. Day coming to him with a wrinkled piece of paper, looking so proud of himself, and then absolutely crushed the next moment by Wen's anger. Wen had apologized and Day seemed to have forgotten, but Wen couldn't help but remember. His nausea returned.

He would apologize again, as soon as he got the chance. Day would forgive him, again, he was sure. But would anything ever be enough? He had done so much wrong, surely there was no way to fix all of it. Not for someone like him. Not when it came to someone like Day. People like himself, like his father, didn't deserve the kind of good that came with people like Day. Wen's breathing got heavier and he dropped the papers from shaky hands, before reeling himself back in. This kind of thinking was useless. He had to focus.

He searched the rest of the room, thoroughly. Besides an incredible number of interestingly shaped rocks, there was nothing. Of course. What else would there be? Wen knew he should leave—there was nothing else to find here—but he couldn't bring himself to. This was his last hope. Once he left he had nowhere else to look.

He laid down on the floor and stared at the ceiling. It wasn't as enjoyable as Day made it seem. But it was as good of a place as any to wallow, so he laid there and let waves of hopelessness wash over him.

Up in the right corner of the room was a small vent. Wen would have never noticed before, but since Day tended to disappear into them, Wen was now prone to take note of them whenever he spotted one. This one was easy to miss, it was far too small for a human to fit inside and much too high to reach without standing on something.

Wen instantly sprung up and called for one of his men to bring a small ladder. This took longer than he anticipated, so he brought all the barstools from his kitchen and attempted to stack them on top of each other. When they simply fell over, he emptied the bookshelf in his study and hauled it to the guest room, leading it up against the wall before climbing.

The vent was screwed shut and could have easily been opened with a screwdriver, but Wen was again too impatient. He pried the screws out with his fingernails, gritting his teeth as the metal tore into his fingertips. Finally, the vent popped open.

Please, Wen begged whatever deity still cared to listen to his prayers, just give me something.

Out of the vent, Wen pulled a knife. In swirling font was carved the name Wen Ro.