Chapter Text
The sun is hot as it beats down on Lena’s skin, and she hurries over the small stretch of field that connects the paddocks to the long dusty footpath that leads into the heart of the village. The unkempt grass scratches across her ankles and the exposed area of her legs, causing the skin there to itch. She resists the urge to bend down and scratch; she can’t linger in the heatー she’s learned the hard way that her pale skin doesn’t take kindly to prolonged exposure.
Even the always cold dirt of the pathway is warm beneath her bare feet. It has been a ruthless summer, and Lena wipes at a stray bead of sweat that rolls down her neck. There’s a lone tree in the distance, its large branches offering the shade that Lena seeks, and she quickens her pace. The sound of cicadas buzzing in the treetop grows louder as Lena nears the ancient oak, and then finallyー bliss. The air is still stifling hot underneath the leafy canopy, but it’s a relief. Lena thinks she might stay here, just for a minute. Surely mother won’t mindー
“Girl.”
Lena’s breath hitches, her steps faltering as she jerks her head in the direction of the voice. Next to the narrow pathway, partially obscured by the tree’s thick trunk, sits a woman. Lena can’t see much of the stranger. A straw hat is tipped low over her face, but as she lifts it, Lena notices a small, slightly hesitant smile. The woman’s hair is dark, not too dissimilar to Lena’s herself; the strands glistening in the sun that sneak through the shade.
Lena finds herself transfixed.
“Come here,” the woman speaks again, her voice softer now. She beckons Lena closer.
Lillian always says not to speak to strangers. Especially not in this neck of the woods, where the closest farmhouse is fields away, and the village even further. But there is something about this woman that tempts Lena to disobey her stepmother’s wishes.
Lena pushes her satchel to rest against her back, mindful that the woman might be a thief, and takes a step closer. Then another.
Suddenly, the woman reaches out to Lena, her hand passing inches away from Lena’s ear, causing her to shut her eyes in fear. When she opens them, a bright green frog struggles in the stranger’s pale grasp.
“How did you do that?” Lena breathes out.
The woman doesn’t respond. She simply closes her hand into a fist and pulls on one of the animal’s still trashing legs. The leg turns into a stem, and before Lena’s eyes, the frog disappears and is replaced by a single red rose.
“Who are you? How did you do that?” Lena repeats. The woman simply smiles, her eyes twinkling. Lena notices the color of them, a beautiful mixture of green and blue.
“A friend,” the woman says, her voice melodic. She reaches out to Lena again, and for a moment Lena wonders what fantastical magic trick the woman might do next. But no magic comes. The woman simply catches a strand of Lena’s hair between her fingers and tucks it behind Lena’s ear. “Just a friend.”
“You can do magic,” Lena states, still mesmerized by the way the woman’s irises seem to change color before her very eyes. She wonders for a moment if it could be another trick.
The woman only nods slightly.
“Can you teach me?”
The woman’s fingertips find their way to Lena’s temple. Her skin is cold, despite the heat of the afternoon. When a cool palm comes to rest against Lena’s cheek, her eyes droop closed. A warm breeze blows past them, ruffling the leaves overhead. Lena shudders.
Everything grows quiet all at once. The leaves stop ruffling. The incessant buzzing of the cicadas ceases. The pressure on her cheek disappears.
When Lena opens her eyes, the beautiful woman is gone. She turns her head, looking up the path and down it, her eyes scanning desperately for a glimpse of the stranger. But there’s nothing. No one.
For a moment Lena wonders if she was under the spell of the sun. Has the fierce heat brought about hallucinations? She turns to leave, shaking the experience off as a moment of delirium, and then she spots it; a black straw hat atop the grass next to the tree trunk.
***
The summer heat persists long into the night, and despite the fear of mosquitoes entering her bedroom, Lena leaves her window wide open in an attempt to cool down. The breeze that enters does little to help, only causing her source of light to flicker precariously. Lena prays the candle doesn’t go out. She has no more matches to relight it, and she can’t risk sneaking downstairs in the dead of night again. Lillian has already caught her once.
When a floorboard creaks, Lena freezes in her position next to her bed. For a moment, time feels suspended and the only thing that moves is the long shadows cast by the candle. The silhouettes dance against the walls, moving to the same beat that Lena’s heart pounds to.
The moment passes, and the townhouse is quiet. Lena releases her breath and continues to practice.
She picks up the plum that she stole from a nearby farm on her way home and rolls it over her knuckles. Before her eyes, the plum disappears, only to reappear in her other hand. Her movements are stunted and any closer inspection would make the sleight of hand obvious, but it’s progress.
A floorboard creaks again, closer this time, and Lena douses the candle’s flame between her forefinger and thumb, ignoring the way her skin burns, and jumps into her bed. Her bedroom door creaks open a moment later, but she keeps her eyes closed and focuses on keeping her breathing even.
“It’s me,” the voice says in the dark.
Lena peaks from underneath her eyelids to see Lex carefully shutting the door, before rounding her bed. She turns on her side and watches as he relights the candle with a box of matches he produces from his pant pocket, before perching himself on the edge of her bed.
“I’ve got you something,” he whispers before handing her a small book. “You better keep it hidden. Mother will skin us both if she learns I’m spending my hard-earned coin on magic books.”
Lena’s blood sings as she pushes herself upright, running her fingers over the cover.
“Thank you,” she whispers, awestruck.
Lex is the only one who seems to care about her sudden, feverish interest in magic. Lionel ignores her and Lillian forbids it. None of them know what brought the sudden interest on. She has told no one about the mysterious woman from weeks ago, not even Lex.
Lex kisses her forehead once before he leaves, taking care to shut the door softly. The moment he’s gone, Lena slides out of her bed again and devours the entire book before the candle even burns halfway.
***
“Don’t drop it!”
“Drop it, you freak!”
Lena pays the group of children no mind. She’s used to being tormented by the village youth. They think she’s odd, whispering insults whenever they see her about. Today, it’s a group of nobleman’s children, sitting high atop their horses as they sneer at her.
“Ally-rat,” one of them spits before they move away, their horses’ hooves clicking on the cobblestone.
Lena couldn’t care less. She focuses instead on balancing an egg on the end of a wooden dell, walking slowly and deliberately through town. Perhaps if she bothered to look up, she would’ve seen the beautiful girl straying from the group of riders. She would’ve seen the girl following her down to the river and over the bridge leading out of the village.
The egg falls eventually, much to Lena’s disappointment. The shell cracks, the yolk splashing onto her bare feet. She sighs and looks up, ignoring the crick in her neck. She’s come further than the last time, past the outskirts of the village, and her family’s house is in view.
“Why do you do it?”
Lena spins around, hand clutched to her chest as her heart threatens to jump out of her throat. She squints through the afternoon sun and is surprised to find a young blonde-haired girl frowning at her. The girl is clearly from a noble family. She’s dressed in riding gear, a riding crop in one hand, and the reins of her horse in the other.
How long have the two of them been following her? Do they mean her harm?
Lena’s instinct is to turn around and run home before this girl too takes to mocking her. But Lena hesitates as the girl smiles. She doesn’t look nasty. In fact, she looks quite friendly. Pretty, even.
“I’m Kara,” the girl says as she extends a hand.
Kara has the loveliest blue eyes, Lena notices as she steps closer to accept the hand. The horse neighs and Lena jumps back, causing Kara to giggle. “He won’t bite,” she insists “he’s just talkative.”
Lena nods, eyeing the horse carefully.
“I think he’s thirsty,” Kara says thoughtfully as she runs her fingers through the horse’s mane. “Is there any water nearby?”
Lena leads them over the field towards her home. Lillian left for the market, and she’s sure Lex and Lionel are carving cabinets in the workshop. Kara ties the horse up and Lena fills a bucket of water for him before leading Kara inside and up to her room.
They find themselves on the floor next to Lena’s bed, and she’s quick to hide the cards that she’d been playing with before her morning egg excursion.
“Do you know magic?” Kara asks, and Lena nods shyly. “Show me. Please.”
Lena hesitates. She hasn’t shown anyone other than Lex, and there’s not much to show besides card and coin tricks. Somehow she feels the need to impress Kara, so she shuffles the deck quickly and holds it out to her. “Pick a card,” she says in her best show voice, “any card.”
Kara giggles and does as she asks, placing her chosen card back in the deck once she has a good look at it.
“Is this your card?” Lena asks, producing the six of hearts.
“It is!” Kara exclaims, grabbing the card and holding it to her chest. “How did you do it?”
Lena opens her mouth to explain, but the sound of the front door being opened stops her. Strangers bustle into her room moments later, led by a woman with a long white streak in her otherwise dark head of hair.
“Dutchess Zor-El,” the woman says in a stern voice. “What are you doing here? Your mother is worried sick.”
“I made a friend!” Kara explains gleefully.
The woman ignores her and barely even spares a glance at Lena. “You cannot be here. These people are peasants.” She hoists Kara up by the arm, pulling her to the door. “Remember who you are.”
Lena doesn’t bother following, although she’s overcome with the desire to sprint downstairs and do just that. ‘Peasant’ the woman had spat. Lena knows a peasant and a duchess can never be friends, so instead, she throws her bedroom window open and watches as Kara is lifted into a carriage and driven away.
***
It’s weeks before she sees Kara again.
At first, Lena doesn’t recognize her. Lena’s idly roaming around the market stalls as she waits for Lex to finish a delivery somewhere in the village when she sees her. Kara’s wearing a navy headscarf, her hair hidden beneath it. She’s alone, none of her friends from the previous encounter seem to be near, and she walks leisurely down the street, face tipped up to the sun.
Lena nearly drops the pocket watch she was admiring when she notices Kara, causing the peddler to frown and wave her away. Lena doesn’t need to be told twice, and before she knows it, she’s pushing her way out of the busy market and down the road.
Kara is already a ways down the street and about to turn a corner, so Lena picks up her pace, breaking into a light jog as she tries to catch up.
“Kara!”
The girl freezes and looks over her shoulder with wide eyes as Lena catches up to her. She looks terrified and Lena falters, suddenly unsure of herself. What was she thinking running up to a duchess?
But Kara smiles, the terror leaving her features. “Lena,” she breathes. She grabs Lena by the arm and pulls her into a nearby alleyway. “I didn’t think I’d see you again.”
Lena frowns. “Because of that scary lady?”
“My aunt. But no, I don’t care much for what aunt Astra says.” She hesitates. “I didn’t know if you’d want to be my friend anymore, now that you know I’m a duchess.”
“I don’t care about that. I thought you wouldn’t want to be my friend. I’m just a peasant after all.”
“I don’t care about that either.”
They smile at each other foolishly for a moment before Kara reaches up to readjust her scarf.
“What’s with that?”
“It’s a disguise,” Kara answers. “Sometimes I want to be just Kara and not duchess Zor-El.” She rolls her eyes but Lena can sense a small amount of pain behind the words. “And also aunt Astra doesn’t like me going into the village on my own, so this way if no one knows it’s me, no one can tell her they saw me.”
“Well, ‘just Kara’” Lena says as she holds out a hand, “may I suggest a place where no one will recognize you at all?”
Kara’s hand is warm as she slips it into Lena’s. “I’d love that.”
***
Kara’s giggles are much louder in the forest, her smiles that much brighter. She doesn’t constantly look over her shoulder like she does when they meet up in town. Here, among the tall oak trees, there’s no fear that her aunt will find them and drag them apart again. Here, she barely even looks like a duchess.
It’s become a ritual for them to seek each other out in the forest. Here they sit and speak uninhibitedly, snacking on pastries and scones that Kara sneaks out for them when she leaves her palace on the other side of the village.
Sometimes they toss stones into the stream, competing to see who can create the biggest splash or lug the stone the furthest. Sometimes Kara wades into the shallow waters, bunching her skirt up to her waist as Lena watches from the safety of the shade.
Today, however, is special. The season has turned, and the autumn winds are picking up. It won’t be long until the first rains fall. But, Lena’s found them an even better hideout for when the forest will become uninhabitable.
The new hideout is still in the forest, past the stream where the trees become girthier and closer together. It’s a small cabin, built years ago, nestled into the side of a hill. It’s barely visible, and Lena only found it by chance, but it’s perfect.
They run towards it, laughing as they go, only slowing once the hill is in sight.
“What is that?” Kara asks breathlessly, a pink blush high on her cheeks.
“A surprise.” Lena takes Kara’s hand and leads them towards the wooden door, opening the rickety structure and stepping back. “After you, m’lady.”
The cabin is tiny, with barely enough room for them to spread their arms. There are no windows, only four walls made of stone and covered in moss. A cobweb hangs in one corner and Lena inwardly scolds herself for not brushing it away before. She waits anxiously as Kara takes it all in.
“I know it’s not a castle, butー”
“It’s perfect!” Kara exclaims as she pulls Lena into the cabin and into her arms.
Over the years, they turn their little cabin into a home. Lena steals a blanket out of Lillian’s linen cupboard. Kara brings a bag of books from the palace library. They have two oil lamps for when they stay out after dark. Lena fashions a small shelf for them to put their belongings on out of some off-cut wood from Lex’s workshop, and soon Lena is inclined to agree; it is perfect.
They spend any and all possible time there together, reading aloud to each other, playing chess with an old set that Lex had carved for Lena’s fourteenth birthday. Sometimes they do not speak at all. They both need an escape from the tumultuous households. Lionel and Lex argue more often than not, mostly about their cabinet business, and Kara’s parents aren’t happy either. They’re barely ever home, she says once. On days like that, they lie in each other’s arms, listening to the way the wind ruffles the leaves of the forest, and pretend that they never have to leave their little cabin.
The summers come and go and as the years pass Kara eventually persuades Lena to join her in the river. It’s a blistering hot summer, hotter even than the summer they met. The hide from the heat in the cabin, the door wide open to allow the breeze to pass through. By dusk, the heat hasn’t relented and Kara closes her sketchbook with a thud.
“I want to go to the stream. Come on.”
They walk hand in hand towards the stream, the forest floor cool beneath their bare feet. Lena takes her place under the nearest tree, her back resting against the trunk. Kara hesitates a moment, looking back from the edge of the stream.
“Join me?”
Lena laughs and shakes her head as she always does before she declines Kara’s offer. “No, you go ahead. I don’t want to burn.”
“The sun is literally setting, Lena.” Kara bunches her skirt slightly and dips her toes into the water. “The water’s nice and warm.”
Lena’s tempted and a smile plays on her lips, but she crosses her legs at the ankles and shakes her head again. Kara walks upstream and Lena closes her eyes, enjoying the breeze and listening to the trickling sound of the running water.
Something cold and wet lands on her face sometime later and she blinks her eyes open to find Kara standing before her. Her skirt is draped over her arms and water droplets cling to the skin of her legs all the up to her knees. When Lena’s eyes land on the material of Kara’s drawers she averts her eyes.
“I’ve found a deep spot. Deep enough to swim,” Kara says as she tosses her skirt to the floor.
Heat rises on Lena’s skin as Kara starts to divulge herself of the rest of her clothes. Lena’s heart beats a peculiar rhythm and she squeezes her eyes shut.
Kara’s voice is small when she asks, “Will you join me?”
Lena chances a glance at her, keeping her eyes high, not straying from Kara’s pink cheeks, or her bottom lip that she has pulled between her teeth.
“It’s getting dark,” Lena croaks in a voice that isn’t her own. The sun won’t fully set for a while, but Lena’s brain is scrambling for any excuse not to undress.
“Please?”
And that’s apparently all it takes for Lena’s resolve to crumble. She rises to her feet on unsteady legs and nods. She struggles to undress with the way her hands shake, but in the end, she manages it. Kara waits with her back turned towards Lena, but Lena sees the color of her blush on her neck and her ears.
The water is lukewarm after having absorbed the heat of the day, but it’s still a shock to Lena’s overheated skin. Kara wades ahead of her, eager to submerge herself and Lena finds herself transfixed by her friend’s body. The shape of her hips, the tanned tone skin of her back, her golden hair shining in the last dredges of the daylight.
When the water reaches their middles, Kara lowers the rest of her body, disappearing from view as she submerges her head. She comes up facing Lena, and before she can brush the water out of her eyes, Lena lowers herself into the stream.
“This is nice,” she says after a moment of nervous silence.
“I told you.”
Kara’s face splits into a blinding smile, and suddenly it doesn’t matter that the sun is setting. Lena has all the light she needs right here.
That night, they float on their backs, their nakedness covered by the cool water and their fingers brushing below the gentle current. They don’t speak much and merely gaze up at the purple haze of the twilight. When the sun fully dips, Lena regretfully pushes herself upright.
Kara’s fingers tighten around Lena’s wrist, pulling her closer. Their shoulders bump beneath the water and a jolt shoots through Lena’s body.
“Not yet,” Kara whispers, her voice breaking the quiet of the night. “Can we stay a little longer?”
Helplessly, Lena nods and intertwines their fingers. “We can stay as long as you want.”
***
“They’re going to want me to marry soon,” Kara says one day.
She says it without really looking at Lena. She’s been quiet for a couple of days, worrying Lena, but refusing to tell her what was on her mind.
Lena swallows. She knew this day was coming. They’re nearing eighteen now.
“There’s a magician in China that can make anything disappear,” Lena manages past the lump in her throat. She moves to sit next to Kara at the open door of their little cabin. “A house, a wagon. Anything.”
Kara doesn’t answer immediately. She continues to stare out at the forest, the crinkle between her brows deepening with each passing moment.
Lena takes a moment to commit Kara to memory. The slope of her nose, the scar above her eye, caused by them falling out of a tree two summers ago. The blush on her cheeks. Kara looks ethereal in the autumn sun, and Lena feels an unbidden sadness well up inside her chest.
“We should go there then. Visit the magician.” Kara takes Lena’s hand and squeezes it. “They can’t stop us if we want to be together.” A single tear tracks its way down Kara’s cheek, the wetness glimmering in the setting sun.
“They’ll never find us,” Lena agrees, eyes burning. She longs to reach out and brush Kara’s tears away. “One day, we’ll run away together.”
“You promise to take me with you?”
“I promise.” Lena nods, the motion dislodging her own tears. “We’ll disappear.”
Kara leans in and places a kiss on Lena’s cheek. Her lips linger for a moment before she pulls back. She seems unsure of herself for only a moment before closing the distance once more. This time, their lips meet, and Lena feels the wetness of her own tears on Kara’s lips.
***
The summer before Kara’s eighteenth birthday, Lena spends her days in the workshop, designing the perfect gift. She settles on a locket, and every waking second not spent with Kara in the woods is spent carving the item.
It takes her weeks of careful carving and tinkering, mostly after dark when her father and brother have finished work for the day, but finally, the day before Kara’s birthday, it’s ready.
They trudge through the forest that day, and over the hill that hides their cabin. In the distance, the towering roof of Kara’s palace home can be seen. It’s the furthest they’ve been away from their village together, and the thought makes Lena giddy.
Lena instructs Kara to close her eyes and then she gently takes her hand and places the locket inside it.
Kara’s smile is blinding once her eyelids flutter open. “Lena, you didn’t have to get me anything,” she breathes.
“I made it,” Lena whispers, feeling her cheeks heat at the admittance. “There’s a secret way for you to open it.”
She takes the wooden locket back from Kara with shaky hands and carefully shows her how to twist it so that it turns into a heart. She slides the heart open, revealing a picture of herself.
“It’s perfect,” Kara says, bringing the locket to her lips and kissing it. “You’re perfect.”
***
Lena breathes heavily as she braces herself against a tree. She desperately tries to force air into her lungs, but it’s hard. She’s not as fit as Kara. God, she’s not even wearing proper shoes to be running through the woods at midnight, but Kara had askedー no ーpleaded.
“Lena, come on! They’re coming!” Kara sounds panicked. Scared. The edge to her voice causes Lena’s heart to pound in a way that has nothing to do with physical exertion.
She forces herself to keep moving, picking up her abandoned lantern and sprinting into the dark, the sound of Kara’s voice the only thing guiding her. The stream bubbles nearby and Lena splashes through the shallow water, disregarding the fallen tree trunk they lowered into it years ago. Kara grabs her hand when Lena catches up, and together they hurry towards the cabin.
“Kara, what’s going on?” Lena asks between breaths as Kara closes the door behind them and extinguishes the lantern. “Please speak to me!”
Lena hears the faint sound of men shouting somewhere in the woods.
“My parents,” Kara begins, “They’veー They went on away on business andー andー” Kara breaks into a sob. “Something terrible happened and they’re not coming back!”
Kara falls to the floor and crawls into Lena’s waiting arms. Lena can do nothing but rub circles onto her back, her mind still reeling. What happened? She wants to ask, but she can’t get her mouth to work.
“Aunt Astra wants to send me away. I'll never return here, Lena! Do you understand? I’ll never see you again!”
Dread settles in Lena’s stomach, so violently she is overcome with the urge to be sick. Outside, the voices grow louder. “They can’t do that,” Lena whispers.
“Make us disappear, Lena. Make us disappear!” Kara hides her face in the crook of Lena’s neck, and Lena feels the dampness of her tears.
Lena closes her eyes and tries with all her might, though she knows it’s futile. It doesn’t work that way. She knows two people can’t just vanish into thin air, but even so, she tries. What else is there to do? They cannot run. They are trapped in their perfect cabin.
She pictures herself with Kara in a cabin. A real cabin, made of wood, somewhere in a town far away from here. Somewhere where they can start afresh and be together, away from everyone and everything. Perhaps near the ocean. Kara’s always dreamed of swimming in its salty waters.
Kara shakes against Lena’s chest and she clutches her closer, pulling her flush against her body and grounding her teeth to keep her own sobs from barreling out of her.
The voices are right outside now and Lena knows there’s nowhere to run. She pulls a still sobbing Kara away from her neck and places a kiss on the crown of her head.
“I’m sorry.” Lena’s voice breaks. There’s so much more she wishes she could say, but the door flies open with a sickening crack.
They’re dragged away from each other and no amount of kicking and screaming rewards them any mercy. Kara screams out to her, and Lena does the same. She screams until her throat feels raw, and then she screams some more.
Kara’s stronger than she looks, and for a moment she manages to slip free from her capture’s grasp and lunges towards Lena. Their hands meet for the briefest of moments, fingers brushing.
Lena lands on the forest floor with a thud, and white-hot pain shoots through her skull. A heavy riding boot lands on her chest.
“You stay away from her. She’s leaving at first light. If you follow, I’ll arrest you and your family.”
Lena struggles to get up, but the pressure on her chest intensifies and she gasps for breath. She can still hear Kara shouting her name.
“Do you understand me, girl?”
Lena can only nod in response as she grips at the leather, her lungs burning. The pressure eases as the boot disappears and Lena rolls onto her side, gasping for breath with stinging eyes and a throbbing head. She can’t see Kara anymore, but she can hear her struggling, can hear her voice calling out to her from the thicket of the woods.
Lena lays there in the dark until eventually the woods fall silent and she can hear Kara’s hoarse screams no more.
***
Lena roams the streets of the village for a week. She stands outside the market where she and Kara sometimes used to meet, waiting for hours, her fair skin suffering as the sun beats down on her. She hopes, despite all, that perhaps Kara has not been sent away. Perhaps she convinced her aunt to let her stay on a bit longer.
She knows little about Kara’s aunt, but enough to realize that she’d never show mercy. Perhaps then her parents would listen to her pleas.
But Kara’s parents are dead, Lex tells her one evening as she wallows in the corner of his workshop. Had Lena not heard of the terrible carriage accident that befell the Duke and his wife?
Still, Lena holds on to the quickly dimming flicker of hope. Could they hold Kara against her will in the palace? She spends another fortnight waiting. And waiting. She becomes so desperate that she walks up to the palace one morning ー a thing she never did in all the years of their shared friendship. She waits and listens and looks and hopes. She stands outside the gates until the sun trades itself for the moon, but it brings little relief and even fewer answers.
The forest, once a place of magic and giggles, a place of gleaming blue eyes and rosy cheeks, feels dead to Lena. The trees loom over her, their branches casting long shadows that leave her skin cold to the touch. She barely looks at them as she walks through the forest towards the cabin.
The door is still broken, its hinges ripped clean off. Lena knows she could mend it if she wanted to, but what’s the point. She crouches beside the overturned door and traces the wood with her finger. There, on the inside of the door, are their names. One engraved in a messy scribble that doesn’t befit a duchess and one in an elegant cursive that doesn’t befit the daughter of a cabinetmaker.
Kara and Lena.
Lena doesn’t linger in the cabin. Its warmth, too, is gone. The lantern is in shards, likely kicked over by Kara’s legs as she fought to escape her aunt’s men. Lena’s shoes crunch over the glass as she reaches for what she came for: her chess set. She grabs the board, grateful that it folds into a box with the pieces kept inside. Everything else can stay. She’ll have no use for Lillian’s linen or palace library books where she’s going. Wherever that is.
She stows the chessboard inside her rucksack, together with what other little belongings she smuggled out of the house. One of Lex’s suits is in there, folded up with some of Lena’s dresses. She hopes he won’t mind. She’s left him a note, together with the book he gave her all those years ago. She has no use for the magic book now. She’s learned all she can from it.
She hopes Lex will understand why she cannot stay. Without Kara, there’s no reason for Lena to continue her life in the deadbeat village. She doesn’t want to be the cabinet maker’s daughter. She doesn’t want to be the bastard daughter.
She wants to be an illusionist.