IGNORANTIA (Dark Academia!Wesper AU)

zeventien

The night air cuts my throat and burns my lungs the way nothing else could, as the breeze of a spring not yet entirely warm runs through my hair and jacket. Part of me wants to go back to the dorm simply to grab a warmer coat or better shoes, but then I remember how dangerous it is to want those kind of things now. We're fugitives now, and we have to act like it.

Jesper leads us not to the Barrel as I assumed he would, but to the Warehouse District. I've only been around here once before when I had tried (and failed) to run away from my father at thirteen years-old. I hid in an old shoe factory to wait out the night, but the owner immediately took notice and called the Stadwatch on me. Then back I went into my father's cold home. It was only for a night that I was free, but I had decided that it was enough. So what if my father was horrible? At least inside that haunted house I was clothed and fed. At least then I had blankets and pillows and oil to light. And I really thought that would last...

The Warehouse District looks even worse than I remembered it being. By now I've lost the fight in me to go back, so instead I solemnly follow Jesper through the blackened streets. There's street lights every few blocks thanks to the Inferni who work these areas, but there's not nearly enough. In fact, I can barely see ten feet in front of me no matter where we are. I just have to trust that Jesper knows where we're supposed to go as he gently pulls my hand.

Eventually, Jesper lets go. He moves towards a locked-down warehouse that wears heavy iron chains around the door. It stinks of leather polish and greased wheels, even from the outside. Jesper pulls his shirt over his nose and closes his hands around the lock. He squeezes it, his eyes screwed up tight in deep concentration, then lets go. The lock falls into two clean pieces, and Jesper opens the heavy, groaning double doors.

"Is this some type of secret hideout?" I ask as I follow him inside.

Jesper takes a rotting lantern from its perch and uses the matchbook in his pocket to light it. "Nope."

"Secret meeting spot, then," I guess. "Where you keep all of your weapons and whatnot."

"Not in the slightest."

I wander over to one of the long wooden tables in the middle of the room. Several little boxes filled with several little vials sit neatly at the far end. I grab one that's no bigger than my thumb and show it off to Jesper.

"Then what do you call these?" I ask.

"I don't know. Tanning stuff?" Jesper says, exasperated. "It's literally just a tannery. There is nothing special about it in the slightest."

"Oh."

Disappointed, I put the bottle back and begin to scan my surroundings. Jesper is probably right, despite how badly I want him to be wrong. The tools on the walls may look like torture devices, but they also just look like normal tools. The place stinks of chemicals, though not ones I recognize easily. It is, in fact, just a boring old tannery.

"I thought we were going to the Crow Club," I say once I'm done with my snooping. There's only so much I can look at with the very limited lighting I have.

"Change of plans," says Jesper. He groans as he sits up on the table. Setting the lantern down, he kneads at one of his knees. He's been limping on that leg all night. "It might've worked if they had nothing to pin on us, but that was before they attacked us. They've got tangible evidence on me now."

"We could plead self-defense," I say. "They did charge into our room without proving to us they had a warrant."

Jesper laughs bitterly at this. It's a new shade of hopelessness I have not heard on him before. I don't quite like it all that much. "I'm a foreigner who's knowingly working for one of the most dangerous men in Ketterdam. I'll never get to see the light of day again when I'm caught."