Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Kara pushed through the workshop door. The Li family's converted barn had transformed over the years into something between laboratory and factory floor, with copper pipes running overhead like mechanical veins, venting steam through clockwork regulators that Kenny had designed himself. The afternoon sun filtered through gear-shaped windows, casting cog-tooth shadows across workbenches cluttered with precision instruments. The smell of machine oil, hot metal, and the faint sulfur tang of coal smoke from the small boiler that powered Kenny's equipment filled the air.

The workshop had grown organically from necessity. Seven years ago, it had been Kenny's father who'd converted the barn after purchasing the valley's first steam-powered thresher—someone needed to maintain it, and the nearest trained machinist was two days' travel. Kenny had apprenticed with old Heinrich, the German millwright in town, for three years, then returned with knowledge his father's practical experience could refine. Now neighbors paid in chickens and corn for Kenny to repair their increasingly complex equipment. What had started as basic maintenance had evolved into innovation—Kenny's modifications to harvesting equipment had spread across three counties.

A steam press hissed in the corner, its pressure gauge trembling as it cooled. Brass shavings glittered on the floor like scattered coins.

"You're late," Kenny called without looking up from the drafting table. His dark hair fell across his forehead as he hunched over papers covered in geometric lines and calculations that might as well have been hieroglyphics. The magnifying lenses attached to his spectacles were flipped down, making his eyes appear unnaturally large as he worked.

"Pa needed help with the threshing." Kara straddled the stool backwards, her father's old work shirt hanging loose over practical brown trousers. She'd rolled the sleeves past her elbows, revealing forearms tanned from harvest work and a leather cuff on her left wrist—worn and oil-stained, studded with small brass rivets. It held the tools she used most often: a folding knife, a small adjustable wrench, and a screwdriver with interchangeable bits that slotted into a brass housing. The whole assembly clicked softly when she moved her arm, each tool precisely positioned for quick access.

The cuff had been necessary since her father's accident with the binder three years back. His left hand had healed crooked, the fingers unable to manage fine adjustments anymore. Someone had to gap the spark plugs, time the gears, true the wheels on their increasingly complex equipment. Kara and her sister, Alex, had learned because the alternative was watching their farm fall behind while neighbors who'd invested in machinery pulled ahead.

The valley had changed in the decade since the railroad pushed through. What had been subsistence farms now shipped grain by the ton, and that meant machines—McCormick reapers, steam threshers, mechanical binders that could do the work of ten men. Every farm needed someone who understood the new equipment, and those who didn't adapt fell behind. The Danvers farm had survived by keeping pace. The Li family had thrived by staying ahead.

"What are you building now?" Kara asked, moving her long blonde ponytail to the back. The hair tie itself was practical—a strip of leather with a small brass gear sewn in for decoration, one of Kenny's early metalworking attempts that she'd never bothered to replace.

"Not building. Designing." Kenny's pencil moved in sure strokes, adding detail to what looked like a floating fortress. Behind him, his leather work apron hung on a brass hook, its surface studded with small tools and pockets for calipers and micrometers. "Ironclad warships. The Navy's been experimenting, but their designs are all wrong."

Kara leaned across him without ceremony, studying the drawings. Ships, she realized. Or rather, ship-like things armored in iron plates, bristling with cannons mounted in rotating turrets that looked like miniature fortresses. She'd helped Kenny with enough projects to recognize brilliance when she saw it—and to spot problems the brilliant mind missed.

She'd learned to see mechanical problems the way most farm girls learned butter-making—by necessity and repetition. When her father's hands grew too stiff to manage delicate adjustments, she'd become his fingers. Three years of gap-setting, gear-timing, and governor-adjusting had taught her that machines were just puzzles with moving parts. The principles that made a reaper work weren't so different from those that would drive a ship's turret.

"This turret mechanism," she said, pointing to a circular structure crowned with cannons. Her brass-riveted cuff caught the light as she reached across the table. "How's it turn?"

"Steam-powered rotation system. See?" Kenny flipped to another sheet covered in mechanical diagrams—not just gears, but an intricate clockwork system where each rotation triggered cascade calculations through a series of brass differential analyzers. "Pressure from the main boiler feeds here, drives this primary gear train, which connects through a reduction assembly..." His finger traced copper-colored lines representing steam pipes. "The whole system's controlled by these pressure regulators—turn this valve, the turret rotates. Gyroscopic stabilizers here keep everything level even in rough seas."

Through the window, the rhythmic thunk-hiss of Kenny's steam engine marked time like a mechanical heartbeat. The same engine that powered his lathe and drill press, adapted from a design he'd seen at Heinrich's mill and improved with his own modifications.

"What happens when you take a hit to the gear housing?" Kara wiped her hands absently on her trousers, leaving faint smudges from the metal shavings still under her fingernails. The small wrench on her wrist cuff clicked as she gestured. "Last month, when the Hendersons' binder took a rock through the drive assembly, the whole thing seized. You'd have the same problem, just with cannon fire instead of fieldstone."

Kenny's pencil stopped moving. The magnifying lenses flipped up with a soft click, and he stared at the drawing with suddenly normal-sized eyes, then at Kara, then back at the drawing. "It... would jam the entire system."

"Leaving you with a very expensive floating target." Kara traced the gear assembly with her finger, her mind automatically seeing how farm equipment would handle the same problem. "What about redundancy? Two smaller gear trains instead of one large one?"

Kenny grabbed a fresh sheet, his pencil flying across the paper. "Or better yet—manual backup. Hand cranks here and here..." His excitement built with each stroke, the pencil scratching in counterpoint to the steam engine's rhythm. "Kara, you're brilliant. If one system fails, the crew can still traverse the turret. We'd need a clutch mechanism to disengage the steam drive, and the gear ratio would have to be—"

"Same principle as the Henderson repair," Kara interrupted, pulling the folding knife from her cuff with practiced ease. She used its edge to scrape away a rough spot on a brass fitting lying nearby. "When we rebuilt their binder, we added a manual override. Cost them an extra day's labor, but saved them two weeks when the drive belt snapped mid-harvest."

"Course it would work. It's just common sense." But warmth spread through her chest at his praise. "You do the same thing with farm equipment—always have a backup for the backup."

They worked in comfortable silence, Kenny sketching while Kara pointed out practical concerns his theoretical mind overlooked. She bumped his shoulder when making a point, reached across him for brass calipers and slide rules without asking, her movements unconsciously claiming equal space at the drafting table. The tools on her wrist clicked and shifted as she worked, an extension of her hands as natural as breathing.

This was their pattern, honed over years of collaboration. Kenny's apprenticeship with Heinrich had given him theoretical knowledge and precision machining skills. Kara's necessity-driven education had taught her how things failed in real-world conditions—and how to fix them when they did. Together, they bridged the gap between elegant design and practical function.

Above them, steam condensed on copper pipes and dripped into collection basins with soft plinks. The shadows grew longer, but neither noticed until Kenny's mother called from the main house.

"Dinner!" Mrs. Li's voice carried the universal authority of mothers everywhere, cutting through even the workshop's mechanical symphony.

Kenny immediately started organizing his papers while Kara continued working until the last possible moment, then wiped her hands on whatever was handy—his sleeve, as it turned out.

"These ships could end the war, Kara. Make it so terrible that both sides have to stop fighting."

Something cold touched Kara's spine. "You think there'll be a war?"

"I think there already is one. We just haven't admitted it yet."

Two weeks later, Kara found Kenny waist-deep in the pond behind the Li farm, cursing at a contraption that looked like a wooden bathtub armored with hammered copper plates. The model was perhaps four feet long, and even half-submerged, it was clearly something special. Rivets studded the hull in neat rows, their brass heads catching afternoon sunlight. A smokestack no bigger than Kara's forearm rose from the deck, topped with a brass cap that vented steam in controlled bursts through a pressure-release valve. The whole thing hissed and clicked like a living creature.

"Please tell me you didn't build a ship in your mother's pond."

"It's a scale model," Kenny protested, wrestling with a lever that clearly wasn't cooperating. Through a porthole-sized opening in the hull, Kara could see the tiny boiler's firebox glowing orange, and the main drive shaft connecting to the propeller through an elegant series of reduction gears—miniature versions of the mechanisms they'd designed on paper. "One-twentieth scale. If the principles work here..."

"They'll work on a real ship. I know." Without hesitation, Kara pulled off her outer shirt and rolled up her trouser legs, revealing sturdy leather boots that had seen better days. The tool cuff on her wrist caught water as she waded in, but it was built for workshop use—a little pond water wouldn't hurt it. She'd waterproofed the leather herself with beeswax and oil. "What's wrong with it?"

"Everything. The boiler pressure's too low, the steering mechanism sticks, and the armor plates keep falling off." Kenny's frustration bled through every word as he gestured at a loose copper plate that had warped away from the wooden hull beneath. "I can design it on paper, but building it..."

Kara crouched beside the model, completely unbothered by the pond water soaking through her rolled cuffs. Farm girl instincts kicked in—the same ones that helped her diagnose why the plow wasn't cutting straight or the windmill wasn't pumping water. She ran her hands along the hull where copper plates had been hastily nailed to the wooden frame, grease and pond scum streaking her fingers. The metal was still warm from the boiler heat, and she could feel vibration through it as the little steam engine labored.

A pressure gauge mounted on the deck trembled between marked zones painted in red and green. The needle sat stubbornly in the yellow warning range.

"Your problem's not the design," she said, pulling the small wrench from her wrist cuff with a practiced twist. The tool clicked free from its brass housing. "It's the construction. Look." She pointed to where the warped plate had pulled its nails loose. "You're trying to make the armor do too much. It's holding pressure, deflecting impact, and maintaining hull integrity all at once."

"So?"

"So when one part has to do three jobs, it usually fails at all of them." Kara used the wrench to test the plate's fastening points, metal clinking against metal. The copper had beautiful hammered texture, but the nails had been driven straight through into the hull planking. "What if the armor was just armor? Let the hull beneath handle the structural load."

It was the same lesson she'd learned when the Danvers' new steam cultivator had cracked its frame two seasons back. Her father had tried to reinforce the stress points by adding more iron plating, making the problem worse. Kara had stripped it back to basics—strengthened the frame itself, then added lighter protective panels that could flex independently. The cultivator had run another three years without issue.

Kenny's eyes lit up behind his spectacles. "A double hull. Inner shell for strength, outer shell for protection..."

When she leaned across him to reach another loose plate, Kenny went very still. Steam from the little smokestack drifted between them, carrying the smell of coal smoke and hot copper.

"Kara," he said quietly, his voice different somehow.

She glanced up, hands still working at the stubborn fastening, her wrench clicking as she adjusted its grip. "What?"

"I—" Kenny's face flushed. "Sometimes I think about... what it would be like if we were more than—"

"Kenny." Kara's voice cut gentle but firm. She sat back on her heels, meeting his eyes directly. The wrench hung loose in her hand, water dripping from its brass surface. "You're my best friend. My brother, practically. That's not going to change."

The rejection landed soft but absolute. Kenny looked down at the water lapping around their ankles, at the little ship floating between them with its clockwork heart still ticking away. "Right. Of course. I just thought—"

"I know what you thought." Kara bumped his shoulder with hers, the same casual contact as always. "But I need you exactly as you are. My partner in crime. The person who sees my ideas and makes them better. Don't complicate that with feelings that'll just make things messy."

Kenny managed a rueful smile. "Messy feelings. Got it."

"Good." Kara turned back to the model ship, slipping the wrench back into her wrist cuff where it clicked into place with satisfying precision. She pulled out the screwdriver instead, selecting a bit from the brass housing. "Now hand me that copper sheet. This boiler housing isn't going to secure itself, and if we don't bleed some of this pressure, your mother's going to find ship parts scattered across her garden."

They spent the next hour rebuilding the model with Kara's suggestions. Her hands proved more skilled than his at the delicate work of fitting copper to wood—years of fixing farm equipment had taught her how to make stubborn pieces cooperate, how to read the stress in metal and compensate for it. The tools on her wrist cuff saw constant use, each one clicking free and back into place as she worked. Kenny supplied the engineering principles while Kara made them work in the real world, her fingers moving with confidence among the miniature pipes and valves.

She fashioned a new mounting system using small brass brackets that allowed the armor plates to float slightly independent of the hull structure, connected by leather gaskets that Kenny cut from an old work apron. The solution was inelegant but effective—exactly the kind of practical engineering that made things actually work instead of just looking impressive on paper.

When they finally launched the improved version, Kenny adjusted the throttle valve and the little propeller began to churn. The model cut through the pond water like a proper ship instead of a leaking tub, its wake spreading in neat V-patterns while the pressure gauge held steady in the safe green zone. The brass smokestack puffed small clouds of steam, and through the porthole, they could see the tiny firebox glowing and the gears turning in smooth mechanical harmony.

"It works," Kenny breathed, watching the little vessel complete a full circuit under its own power. Steam rose from the smokestack in rhythmic bursts, and the propeller churned the pond water into froth. "Kara, it actually works."

"Course it works. We built it right." But she felt the same wonder watching their creation navigate the pond. Something they'd made with their own hands, moving under its own power like a living thing—brass and copper and steam transformed into purpose. She touched the gear ornament in her hair tie unconsciously, one of Kenny's earliest attempts at metalwork that had become hers.

"When the war comes," Kenny said quietly, "ships like this could save thousands of lives. End it faster."

"When?" Kara's throat tightened. "Not if?"

Kenny was quiet for a long moment, watching their model ship steam toward the far shore, its mechanical parts visible through the clear pond water—gears turning, propeller spinning, steam pressure driving it forward with inexorable purpose. "Lincoln won the nomination last month. If he wins in November..." He shrugged. "The South won't stand for it. And when they go, someone needs to be ready."

"Someone like you?"

"Someone like me."

The little ship bumped against the far bank, its boiler sighing as pressure dropped with a long, mournful whistle. Kara wanted to ask if he'd thought about what happened to engineers in wartime, if he'd considered that his brilliant mind might end up in a shallow grave somewhere. But the question stuck in her throat, too large and terrible to voice.

Instead, she waded toward their creation to retrieve it, water squelching between her toes inside her boots. She pretended not to notice how Kenny's shoulders had already set with the weight of decisions not yet made, while the setting sun made the little ship's brass fittings glow like captured fire.

The Senator's dining room gleamed with polished mahogany and crystal but it was the lighting fixtures themselves that proclaimed wealth beyond measure—elaborate brass chandeliers hung from the ceiling on steam-powered pulleys, making their height adjustable throughout the evening at the turn of a valve.

Lena sat between Mrs. Covington—a steel magnate's wife whose conversation rarely ventured beyond the latest Paris fashions—and young Marcus Whitman, the Senator's son, whose attention had grown increasingly pointed throughout the evening's seven courses. Along the walls, pneumatic message tubes whooshed softly every few minutes, carrying notes between servants' stations with compressed air. A small brass panel near the Senator's seat displayed pressure gauges and valve controls, allowing him to adjust the lighting or summon specific servants.

"Miss Luthor," Marcus leaned closer, his voice pitched for intimacy though a dozen other guests shared the table. The brass buttons on his waistcoat caught the gaslight—each one stamped with tiny gear patterns that marked him as politically connected to industrial interests. "I was just telling Father about your family's munitions contracts. Quite impressive expansion during these... troubled times."

Lena cut her roast duck with precise movements, buying herself a moment. "The war has created certain opportunities," she agreed, her tone carefully neutral.

"Indeed." Marcus's smile revealed teeth as perfect as his political ambitions. At his wrist, a steam-powered pocket watch gleamed on a heavy brass chain—an absurdly expensive piece that vented tiny puffs of steam every minute as its miniature boiler maintained pressure. "Father believes the conflict will conclude within the year—naturally, with proper leadership in Washington. A man of vision could position himself quite advantageously for the reconstruction period."

A man of vision. Lena nearly laughed at his transparent attempt to cast himself as such. "How fortunate that your father possesses such foresight."

"Oh, Father's wisdom is considerable, but I've developed some insights of my own." Marcus's hand brushed against hers as he reached for his wine glass—no accident, she was certain. "Perhaps you'd allow me to share them? I find intelligent conversation so... stimulating."

Across the table, Miss Adelaide Thornton giggled behind her fan. The other young ladies watched with similar attention, their silk gowns rustling as they leaned forward slightly, eager not to miss any detail of this exchange.

"I'm certain your insights prove most valuable," Lena replied, withdrawing her hand to her lap.

"Father speaks highly of your family's influence," Marcus continued, undeterred. "The Luthor name carries considerable weight in industrial circles. A partnership between our families could prove... mutually beneficial."

There it was—the careful proposal wrapped in business terminology. Lena had been expecting this conversation since the invitations arrived. Marcus Whitman represented everything her mother considered suitable: political connections, social standing, the kind of ambitious mediocrity that would complement rather than challenge her.

"Partnership," she repeated thoughtfully. "In what capacity?"

Marcus's confidence swelled visibly, and his steam-watch chose that moment to emit a small puff of vapor. "Well, naturally, marriage represents the most... comprehensive form of alliance. I've spoken with Father about my intentions, and he believes—"

"Your intentions." Lena set down her fork with deliberate care, the sound sharp against bone china. Around the table, conversation had subtly quieted as other guests strained to hear. Above them, one of the chandeliers adjusted height with a soft mechanical whir, its brass gears clicking as it descended slightly. "How presumptuous of you to form intentions regarding my future without consulting me directly."

A flush crept up Marcus's neck, though his smile never wavered. "Of course, my dear, I merely meant—"

"I'm not your dear," Lena said, her voice pitched to carry just far enough. "Nor am I a business proposition to be discussed between men as if I possessed no agency in the matter."

Mrs. Covington's fan snapped open with unusual vigor. Miss Thornton's eyes had gone wide with delighted scandal. At the head of the table, Senator Whitman cleared his throat meaningfully, and somewhere in the walls, a pneumatic tube whooshed as a servant somewhere received a message.

"Miss Luthor," he interjected with practiced political smoothness, "I'm certain my son intended no disrespect. Young people today, so... direct in their courtship methods."

"Direct," Lena agreed, meeting the Senator's gaze. "Yes, let's be direct. Your son views me as a particularly valuable asset—the Luthor fortune, the industrial connections, the social position. A wise investment for an aspiring politician."

Marcus's face had gone red now, though whether from embarrassment or anger remained unclear. His steam-watch hissed softly, venting excess pressure. "I assure you, my regard for you extends far beyond—"

"Beyond my inheritance?" Lena's smile was sharp as crystal. "How flattering. Tell me, Mr. Whitman, what exactly do you know of my interests? My work? My thoughts on any subject more substantial than the weather?"

The silence stretched uncomfortable and absolute. Marcus opened his mouth, closed it, then tried again. "Well, naturally, a lady of your... refinement..."

"Has no thoughts worth knowing?" Lena finished. "How convenient for you."

"Now see here—" Marcus began, but Lena had already turned to address the table at large.

"Ladies and gentlemen, my apologies for this disruption. It seems Mr. Whitman labored under the misapprehension that my attendance at dinner constituted acceptance of a marriage proposal I was never offered." She rose, silk rustling. Overhead, the chandelier adjusted again, as if even the mechanical fixtures sensed the drama. "I find myself suddenly indisposed. Mother, please make my excuses to our hosts."

Lillian's expression could have frozen champagne, but she nodded with rigid grace.

As Lena moved toward the door, Marcus scrambled to his feet, his chair scraping against hardwood. "Miss Luthor, please—I think there's been some misunderstanding—"

She paused, turning back with cool deliberation. "On the contrary, Mr. Whitman. I understand perfectly. You see a woman as an asset to be acquired rather than a person to be known. The misunderstanding was mine—in believing this gathering might offer intelligent conversation rather than a business negotiation disguised as courtship."

The door closed behind her with satisfying finality, though she could hear the explosion of whispered commentary that followed, punctuated by the soft mechanical sounds of fans deploying and the whoosh of pneumatic tubes carrying gossip to servants in other parts of the house.

In the hallway, Lena allowed herself a moment of genuine satisfaction. She'd devastated Marcus's presumption without creating scandal that would damage the family's reputation. A measured response that would be gossiped about for weeks but couldn't be criticized as improper.

Still, as she waited for her carriage, a familiar hollowness settled in her chest. Another evening wasted on empty conversation with empty people. Another suitor who saw her inheritance before he saw her. Another performance of the dutiful daughter while her real self remained invisible.

When did I last encounter someone who wanted to know what I actually think rather than what I might be worth?

The question lingered as her steam-carriage rolled through streets toward the Luthor mansion. The vehicle's small boiler chugged quietly beneath the passenger compartment, and through the floor she could feel the rhythmic vibration of the engine. Street lamps ignited automatically as they passed, triggered by light-sensitive shutters. The whole city ran on steam and gears now, a vast mechanical organism that never truly slept.

But even surrounded by all this innovation, this triumph of human ingenuity over nature, she felt utterly alone.

Rain pelted the workshop windows when Kenny finally said the words Kara had been dreading for months.

"I enlisted yesterday."

Kara's hands stilled on the small mechanical part she'd been filing smooth, metal shavings scattered across the workbench like silver snow. Around them, Kenny's latest project—an improved firing mechanism for artillery pieces—lay scattered in various stages of completion. She set down the file and wiped her hands on her trousers—a gesture that would have horrified most mothers but felt natural as breathing.

"Army Corps of Engineers?" Her voice came steady despite the sudden hollowness in her chest.

"They need people who understand fortifications, siege equipment..." Kenny's words tumbled together, as if speed could make them hurt less. "Modern warfare, Kara. Everything's changing. They need engineers who can adapt."

"Two weeks," she said, not asking. Kenny's guilty expression was answer enough. She punched his shoulder hard enough to make him wince. "You couldn't have mentioned this before I helped you perfect that firing mechanism?"

"I wanted to finish it first. Together."

Two weeks to complete the latest design. Two weeks of shared work and easy conversation. Two weeks before Kenny vanished into the vast machinery of war, leaving behind only letters that might or might not arrive.

"You don't have to go." The words escaped before she could stop them. "The war might not even happen. Lincoln's not president yet. Maybe—"

"South Carolina's already talking secession." Kenny's voice carried the weight of certainty she'd been avoiding. "Fort Sumter's a powder keg waiting for a spark. This is happening, Kara. And when it does, I want to be somewhere I can help."

"Help get yourself killed, you mean."

"Help save lives." Kenny turned to face her fully, his dark eyes serious. "These designs—the ironclads, the improved artillery—they're not about killing more people. They're about ending fights faster. Making war so terrible that both sides have to find another way."

Kara wanted to argue, to point out that making war more terrible might just make it worse. But she'd seen Kenny's face when he worked, the quiet intensity of someone trying to solve an impossible problem. He believed in what he was doing with the same faith she brought to planting corn in spring.

She paced the length of the workshop, kicking at wood shavings scattered across the floor. "Promise me something."

"Anything."

"Stay in touch. Letters, telegrams, whatever it takes. Just let me know you're safe."

Kenny reached for her hand, his fingers warm and calloused from workshop work. "I promise.

The workshop was quiet except for wind rattling the windows. Outside, snow fell in lazy spirals, covering the familiar landscape in pristine white that would be mud by morning. Everything looked the same as it had an hour ago, but something fundamental had shifted. The world where she and Kenny built impossible things in a converted barn was ending, replaced by one where engineers went to war and friends made promises they might not be able to keep.

"You better," she whispered, running her hand through her hair in a gesture of frustration that scattered loose blonde strands.

Kenny smiled—the same bright expression that had lit up a thousand shared discoveries. "Alright. Now help me finish this firing mechanism. If I'm going to war, I'm taking the best design we can build."

They worked until the lamp oil ran low, their hands moving in the familiar rhythm of shared labor. Kara memorized the sound of Kenny's quiet humming, the way he chewed his pencil when thinking through a problem, the careful precision of his movements when assembling delicate parts.

When they finally packed up for the night, Kenny pressed a folder into her hands.

"What's this?"

"Schematics for the ironclad turret mechanism, and well, the whole thing. With your improvements." Kenny's smile held a note of mischief. "Keep it safe. Someday, when this is all over, we'll build one together properly."

Kara tucked the folder under jacket. "When this is all over," she agreed.

But as she walked home through the falling rain, she couldn't shake the feeling that some promises were easier to make than keep. And that the world they'd known was gone, buried beneath the weight of choices that couldn't be undone.

The folder crinkled softly against her ribs with each step, a paper talisman carrying the ghost of Kenny's optimism into an uncertain future. She would keep it safe, she decided. No matter what came next, she would keep this piece of who they'd been together.

Even if everything else was lost.

6 Months Later

The steam harvester hissed and clanked as Kara methodically drove it down the last row of cornstalks, cutting ears free. Alex worked at the same steady rhythm with the corn husker across the field.

"That's the last of it for today," Alex yelled, tossing an ear into the bushel basket. Sweat darkened the collar of her shirt. "Thank God. My back's screaming."

"Girls!" Their mother's voice carried from the porch. "Supper!"

Kara parked the harvester and jumped off, brushing chaff from her trousers. The farmhouse sat solid against the horizon, smoke curling from the chimney. Home. Safe. Everything Kenny didn't have.

At the table, her father blessed the food while Kara's mind wandered south, to battlefields she'd only read about in newspapers. The roast chicken might as well have been sawdust.

"You've barely touched your plate," Eliza observed, concern creasing her weathered features.

Kara set down her fork. "I can't stop thinking about Kenny."

Alex's hand found hers beneath the table, squeezed once.

"Still no word?" Her father's question landed gentle, but the weight of it pressed against her ribs.

"Nothing. Not since Virginia." The words scraped raw in her throat. "It's been months, Pa. Months. What if—"

"Don't." Alex's voice cut sharp and certain. "Don't go there."

"But what if he's hurt? What if he needs help and we're just sitting here eating supper like nothing's wrong?" The desperation clawed free before Kara could contain it. She pushed back from the table, chair legs scraping against worn floorboards. "He'd look for me. If it were reversed, Kenny wouldn't just wait."

Her mother reached across the table, calloused fingers warm against Kara's wrist. "What would you have us do, sweetheart?"

Kara met her mother's gaze, saw understanding there mixed with helplessness. They were farmers. What power did they hold against armies and war?

"I don't know," Kara whispered. "I just know we can't lose him."

Later that night, the lamplight in Alex's room flickered shadows across walls papered with anatomy diagrams. She was on break from her second year at New York Medical College for Women and Kara felt grateful she was home for awhile as she sat on the narrow bed, knees drawn up, while Alex paced the worn floorboards.

"You want to do what?"

"Go to the Luthors' charity ball." Kara's voice came steady despite the wild hammering in her chest. "There's a general coming to the city—Sickles. I saw the poster all about it. He's recruiting and he'll be there. He'll know something about missing soldiers, about Kenny."

Alex stopped mid-stride. "Kara, that's insane. You can't just walk into a Fifth Avenue ball and corner a general."

"Why not?"

"Because you're—" Alex gestured helplessly. "You're a farm girl. They'd throw you out before you reached the door."

The truth of it stung, but Kara pushed past it. "Not if I go as a man."

Silence stretched between them, punctuated only by crickets singing through the open window. Alex's expression shifted from disbelief to something sharper, more calculating.

"You're serious."

"Kenny needs me." Kara met her sister's gaze. "I can't just sit around while he's God knows where. If there's even a chance Sickles has information..."

Alex crossed to the window, stared out at darkness broken only by distant farmhouse lights. "It would cost money, and you'd need proper clothes. Men's evening dress," she murmured, already moving from opposition to logistics.

"I've got money saved, and Mrs. Li would give me the suit Kenny wore to his cousin's fancy wedding- or anything really- if she thought it might help."

"But fooling a ballroom full of Society types? That's not just throwing on trousers and slicking back your hair."

"Then help me." Kara reached for Alex's hand. "You go to college around them. Teach me. How to walk, how to talk, how to…"

"Be someone you're not?" Alex's mouth quirked, a reluctant smile touching her lips. "Fine. But if you're going to do this, you're going to do it right."

The next two days was filled with merciless training. The first attempt at walking was a disaster. "Not enough shoulder," Alex critiqued from a stump in the barn. "You're walking like who's late for church. I need you to walk like a man who owns the church."

Kara practiced over and over again, focusing on planting her feet, on letting her shoulders lead. Alex drilled her on how to lower her voice to a register that felt unnatural in her own throat, how to shake a hand with firm, brief pressure, how to nod instead of smile. "Don't look so open," Alex commanded. "Don't smile with your whole face, just the corner of your mouth. Men don't fidget, they occupy space. Look at them like you're assessing them, not pleading with them." Every muscle in Kara's body fought against the rigid posture Alex demanded.

By dawn on the third day, Kara's throat ached from holding her voice low, her shoulders were stiff from the constant tension of masculine posture, and she'd memorized a dozen conversational gambits that felt like wearing someone else's skin.

"Again," Alex commanded, arms crossed. "A gentleman asks about your family's business interests."

Kara cleared her throat, pitched her voice down. "Farming, mostly. Corn and oats." The words came clipped, dismissive—the way Alex had taught her to deflect questions before they could probe deeper.

"Better." Alex circled her like a drill sergeant. "But you're still too eager to explain. Rich men don't explain themselves to strangers. They offer just enough to satisfy curiosity, then turn the question back."

"Like this?" Kara tried again, letting boredom color her tone. "Farming. And yourself?"

Alex's mouth quirked. "Perfect. Condescending enough to be believable." She paused, her expression shifting from instructor to sister. "You know this is insane, right? If anyone discovers—"

"They won't."

"Kara—"

"Kenny needs me." Kara met Alex's gaze, saw her own desperation reflected there. "I have to do this."

Alex sighed, reached out to straighten Kara's collar with surprising gentleness. "Then do it right. Walk in there like you own the place. And for God's sake, don't smile at everyone."

Kara had a feeling that wouldn't be a problem.

The factory floor of Luthor Machines and Munitions stretched vast and iron-ribbed beneath skylights dulled by coal smoke. Lena bent over the drafting table, charcoal pencil moving in precise strokes across paper that already bore the ghost-marks of earlier attempts. Her father's notes lay scattered beside her—cramped handwriting documenting breech mechanisms and rifling calculations that had occupied his final months.

A year gone, and his absence still carved hollow spaces through the building.

The blueprint took shape beneath her hands: a repeating rifle mechanism that would reduce loading time by half. Revolutionary, if the tolerances could be machined tight enough. If the materials held under stress. If—

"Miss Luthor."

She didn't look up. "Mr. Garrett."

The foreman's boots scuffed against the concrete, hesitant. He'd worked for her father twenty years, knew every lathe and furnace on the floor. But he didn't know how to speak to her—the daughter who'd materialized in the factory proper after Lionel's death, claiming workspace among the engineers instead of remaining decorative upstairs.

"There's concern," Garrett began, then cleared his throat. "Among the floor managers. About production schedules."

Lena set down her pencil with deliberate care. "Speak plainly."

"Your mother has attended few meetings since the funeral. We wondered if your brother might return from San Francisco. Take charge."

Lex. Of course they wanted Lex. The son, the name, the one who'd abandoned them all for political games in California.

"My brother," Lena said, her voice measured steel, "is occupied with his own interests. He won't be returning."

"But the business—"

"Will continue." She met Garrett's gaze, watched him flinch. "I've examined the Remington contract. Their specifications require modifications to our current barrel production, which will necessitate retooling the Number Three line. I've already drafted the equipment orders."

Garrett blinked. "You've—when?"

"Last Tuesday." Lena gestured to a stack of papers. "The cost analysis is there. We'll need to hire six additional machinists, but the contract margins will absorb the expense within three months. Let my mother grieve, Mr. Garrett. The factory will endure.

The scissors had felt like a betrayal. Each lock of blonde hair that fell to the kitchen floor had taken a piece of her—the girl who'd braided it for Sunday services. Now she stood in the living room wearing Kenny's formal black suit, the fabric smelling faintly of cedar and Mrs. Li's lavender soap. The trousers fit her hips, the jacket sat square across her shoulders. She'd bound her chest with linen until breathing came a little bit careful.

Her mother's hand flew to her mouth.

"Kara." Her father's voice broke on the syllable. He rose from his chair, his calloused palm cupping her shorn head, gentle as if she might shatter. "What have you done?"

"What I had to."

"There's nothing we can say to change your mind, is there?"

"No, Pa."

He sank back into his chair, suddenly aged beyond his years. "Promise us you'll be careful."

Kara knelt beside him. "I promise."

Chapter Text

Enough light for a whole city,

Kara paused after passing through the ballroom doors, catching her breath at the extravagance. Marble floors were inlaid with copper in geometric patterns, and silk-gowned women glided past tables laden with silver.

She straightened her borrowed jacket, remembered Alex's voice: Walk like you own the place. She pushed forward into the crowd, nodding curtly at anyone whose gaze lingered, fighting the urge to smile and introduce herself properly.

Near the refreshment table, champagne flowed like water from a mechanical fountain whose bronze cherubs held crystal vessels that filled and emptied in perfect rhythm, driven by hidden clockwork. A waiter who couldn't be older than sixteen, poured steadily while guests held out crystal flutes without acknowledgment.

"—fifteen percent increase, just this quarter—"

The voice cut through the waltz music emanating from a steam-powered orchestrion in the corner, its polished brass case decorated with rotating cams that controlled the mechanical instruments within. Two men stood near a marble column topped with a bronze shaped like intertwining gears, cigars glowing.

"McAllister's munitions contracts?" The second man's laugh dripped satisfaction. "Astute investment. This conflict has proven most profitable for those with proper foresight."

"Indeed. The prolonged nature benefits our portfolios considerably. One cannot manufacture much armaments during peacetime, after all."

Kara's fingers tightened on her champagne flute. Every chandelier, every silk bustle, every imported delicacy—purchased with blood money while men fought and died and vanished. The prolonged nature benefits our portfolios. She set down the glass on a side table whose bronze legs were cast in the shape of pistons, before her trembling hands betrayed her.

The young waiter navigated through the crowd, his threadbare jacket straining across narrow shoulders. Then a woman in peacock-blue silk shifted carelessly, her elaborate bustle catching the tray's edge.

Crystal shattered across marble. Golden champagne pooled, following the copper inlay lines like liquid metal, and conversation died.

"Clumsy wretch!" The woman's voice carried, sharp with cruelty. "Look what you've done to my gown!"

"Ma'am, I'm terribly sorry, I didn't—"

"Didn't see? Naturally not. This is what comes of employing street refuse for refined gatherings." Her volume rose deliberately. "I warned Lillian that wartime help would prove inadequate. One simply cannot secure proper servants anymore."

The boy knelt among glass shards, hands shaking as he gathered pieces. Blood welled across his palm—thin, bright red against pale skin.

"Utterly pathetic," another guest observed, stepping delicately around the mess.

Kara's vision tunneled.

Her legs carried her forward without conscious decision. The masculine register Alex had drilled into her came easier when anger burned hot.

"That's quite enough." The words emerged louder than intended, cutting through tittering conversation.

She knelt beside the boy, glass crunching. His eyes—terrified, ashamed—met hers.

"Hey," she said softly, her natural warmth slipping through the Kent facade. "You're hurt. Let's get that cleaned up, all right?"

"Sir, I can't leave, I have to—"

"I'll handle this." She stripped off her jacket without hesitation, began using it to gather larger shards. "What's your name?"

"Thomas, sir."

"Well, Thomas, accidents happen to everyone. Even to ladies who don't watch where they're walking." She helped him to his feet. "Go find the kitchen staff. Get that hand bandaged properly."

"What do you think you're doing?" Peacock-blue rustled with outrage. "That boy requires immediate dismissal."

Kara stood slowly.

The woman was older, her face powder-caked and pinched with habitual displeasure. Behind her, a small crowd had gathered—merchants and industrialists and their wives, watching with detached theatrical interest.

"He requires medical attention," Kara said, each word deliberate. "Not your... performance."

The sharp intake of breath rippled outward like a stone dropped in still water.

Lena stood at the periphery, champagne untouched, observing couples dance to the orchestrion's mechanical melodies.

"Lena." Lillian's voice cut through the waltz. "Who is that person?"

Lena followed her mother's gaze. A young man walked from a dispersing crowd, shaking his jacket over a trash bin before slinging it over his arm. His dress shirt fit well, but his posture remained stiff, uncomfortable. Blonde hair caught the light, and even from this distance, she could see the stubborn set of his jaw.

Interesting, she mused.

A portly industrialist intercepted the stranger near the refreshment table, where the mechanical fountain continued its rhythmic dispensing.

"I don't believe we've been introduced."

"Kent Daniels." The response was curt, guarded.

"Bartholomew Richardson. My father knew some Daniels from Boston—shipping interests. Any relation?"

Lena expected diplomatic deflection. Instead, those blue eyes went winter-cold.

"No relation to anyone profiting from this war."

Bartholomew's face mottled red. "Now see here, young man—"

"I see perfectly well," Kent cut him off. "Good men dying while you calculate contracts."

The industrialist huffed away, muttering about "upstarts" and "breeding."

Bold, Lena thought, studying Kent's profile. Stupid, but bold.

"He doesn't belong here," Lillian sniffed. "Discover his purpose and have him removed."

Lena set down her glass on a serving tray carried by a mechanical butler with a perpetual smile as it navigated between guests.

Up close, the stranger was unexpectedly striking— his clear blue eyes held depths that suggested intelligence beneath the obvious discomfort. His cufflinks were simple brass, his shoes practical leather. A fraud, certainly, but a compelling one.

"You appear somewhat... displaced," Lena said, deploying her most condescending tone like a precisely sharpened blade. "Perhaps you missed your intended destination? The servants' entrance is around back."

"I'm exactly where I need to be," Kent replied, meeting her gaze with surprising steadiness. "Though I'm beginning to question the company."

The sheer audacity momentarily stunned her. "The company?" Lena's voice could have crystallized the champagne fountain. "How presumptuous. I am Lena Luthor. And you are?"

"Kent Daniels. And I find myself in a room full of vultures picking over a battlefield."

Vultures. The word hit harder than it should have. "How charmingly... rustic," she managed, letting her gaze drift deliberately over his borrowed finery. "Let me hazard a guess—farmer? Tradesman? Whatever provincial occupation brought you here, I assure you this gathering exceeds your proper sphere."

His jaw tightened, and something flickered in those blue eyes—not embarrassment, but righteous fury. "At least I work for a living instead of hosting elaborate entertainments while good men are lost to this world."

The accusation struck like a physical blow. "And what would you know about good men?" The words emerged sharper than intended, revealing more hurt than she'd meant to show. "You intrude upon a charitable gathering, insult our guests, and presume to lecture us regarding morality?"

"Charitable?" Kent's laugh carried bitter disbelief. "Lady, half the men in this room grow wealthy on government contracts while soldiers freeze in tents. If that represents your morality, then yes—I'll lecture away. And I paid admission."

Heat flashed through Lena's chest—anger mixed with something uncomfortably resembling shame. She'd redesigned her father's factories, worked sixteen-hour days to build something meaningful from inherited guilt. Yet this provincial nobody looked at her and saw nothing but another pampered socialite.

"You know nothing about our contributions here," she said, fighting to keep her voice level. "This ball will raise thousands for soldiers' relief."

"After covering the food and imported champagne, I'm certain the remaining crumbs will prove most helpful."

"How dare you—"

"Miss Luthor?" General Sickles materialized beside her elbow, resplendent in dress uniform adorned with shiny brass buttons. His eyes assessed Kent with professional calculation. "Is this gentleman causing difficulty?"

Lena felt Kent tense—not with fear, but desperate frustration poorly concealed. Part of her wanted to say yes, to watch him dragged away like her mother would prefer. But something in his expression- in his eyes, gave her pause.

"Not at all, General," she heard herself say. "Mr. Daniels was merely... expressing his passion for our cause."

Sickles relaxed marginally. "Indeed. Any friend of the Luthors is naturally welcome." He moved toward the card tables where cigar smoke hung thick beneath chandeliers that automatically adjusted their gas flow based on the room's occupancy.

Kara watched the general retreat, then made her choice. This was her chance—not sparring with cold-eyed heiresses, but finding Kenny.

"General Sickles, sir." He caught up near the card tables.

Sickles turned, expression pleasant but distant. "Yes?"

"I wonder if I might have a brief moment. Regarding a soldier—Kenny Li, a marine engineer who—"

"Mr. Daniels, was it?" Sickles' smile never wavered, but his attention had already shifted past Kent's shoulder to where a mechanical card-shuffling device whirred quietly on the green baize. "I'm afraid these gentlemen have awaited their game all evening."

"It will only require a minute, sir. Li was last stationed in Virginia, and his innovations for ironclad improvements—"

"Young man." The general's voice hardened slightly. "I receive dozens of such inquiries daily. Missing brothers, sons, sweethearts. The Army maintains records for such matters. I suggest correspondence with the War Department."

"I've gotten no reply, General." Kara felt desperation claw up her throat. Kenny's gentle hands sketching ship designs by lamplight, his earnest excitement about armor innovations that could save lives. "But Li isn't merely any soldier. His work on naval defense could—"

"The War Department," Sickles repeated, each word deliberate as a door closing. He nodded to the waiting men. "Gentlemen, shall we commence?"

Kent stood frozen as the general disappeared into evening coats and silk gowns. The dismissal was absolute, practiced—the kind of brush-off Sickles had perfected through countless similar encounters. Above them, the chandelier dimmed slightly, its automatic system responding to the shift in room dynamics.

Behind him, expensive fabric rustled. He didn't need to turn.

"Well," Lena said, vindication threading her voice. "That proceeded precisely as I would've anticipated."

Kent stared at her, suspicion mixing with devastation. "And why should that concern you, Miss Luthor?"

"I'm not entirely certain." The honest admission surprised them both. She studied his profile—the stubborn jaw, the barely contained anguish. "What do you truly want here?"

His shoulders sagged as fight drained from him. "My friend is missing. Kenny Li. He enlisted as a marine engineer with the Union. His final letter came from Virginia, months past. Then... silence."

Despite herself, Lena found herself genuinely listening. The raw worry in his voice contradicted his earlier aggression entirely.

"And you believed crashing a social gathering would help locate one soldier among thousands?"

"Kenny isn't just any soldier," Kent said fiercely, and there—that passionate loyalty again, so foreign to her world it might have been a different language. "He designed revolutionary improvements for ironclad vessels. If he's been captured, if they're forcing him to work for Confederate interests..."

Intelligence like that made a man valuable—and vulnerable. Lena's mind immediately calculated strategic implications, the kind of thinking her father had instilled since childhood. But watching Kent's genuine anguish, she felt an unexpected twist of... what? Sympathy?

"So you came here," she said slowly, "hoping to corner General Sickles with your... situation."

His face hardened again. "Kenny would do the same for me."

Such simple loyalty. In Lena's experience, people helped others only when it served their interests. Yet Kent's devotion seemed utterly without calculation.

"The general won't see you," she said, unable to entirely suppress satisfaction. "Not without proper connections."

Kent's expression crumbled momentarily before reforming into stubborn determination. "Then I'll find another way."

"With what resources? Your charming social graces?" Lena's laugh was sharp as breaking crystal. "You've already insulted half the assembly. What makes you believe anyone here would assist a rude provincial with delusions of importance?"

"While you and your friends host elaborate entertainments, good men are dying," Kent shot back. "But I suppose that merely represents sound business for the Luthors."

The words struck like a blade finding its mark. Lena stepped closer, voice dropping to deadly whisper. "You know nothing about me or my family's enterprises, farmer. Nothing about what I've sacrificed or what I've attempted to build from the ashes my father left behind."

Kent held his ground, though she saw him swallow hard. Those blue eyes searched her face as if looking for something genuine beneath the polished surface. "I know enough."

Do you? she wondered suddenly. Do you see anything real, or just another ornament in silk and jewels?

For a moment, Lena genuinely considered having him ejected as her mother desired. The presumption, the casual cruelty of his assumptions—it would serve him right to fail spectacularly.

But then she thought of the young man's missing friend, probably somewhere in Confederate hands with revolutionary ship designs. The strategic advantage such knowledge could provide. And despite her anger, despite this infuriating man's boorishness, possibilities began crystallizing.

"Sickles won't see you," she repeated, appearing to wrestle with herself. "However... he might see me. And despite your complete absence of manners, your friend's situation proves... intriguing."

Kent's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "What's your price?"

"I don't dispense charity," Lena said coldly. "Especially not to ungrateful farmers who mistake rudeness for righteousness. This would be a transaction—I arrange a private meeting with General Sickles in exchange for detailed intelligence regarding these ship innovations you mentioned. Do you have such access?"

"I might. But I don't need assistance from someone who treats war like a social occasion."

"Then enjoy explaining your friend's fate to yourself when you accomplish nothing." She turned to leave, then paused. "Oh, and Mr. Daniels? Next time you decide to crusade against the wealthy, you might avoid wearing their castoff clothing while doing so. It rather undermines the moral superiority."

She took three steps before his voice stopped her.

"Wait."

Lena turned slowly, eyebrow arched in cool inquiry.

Kent's hands clenched at his sides, jaw working as if the words tasted bitter. "What exactly would you require?"

"Everything," she said simply. "His designs, his methodologies, his theories regarding ironclad construction. Provide what documentation you possess within two days. In exchange, if what you provide is worthy, I'll arrange a private audience with Sickles within the week."

"And why would you want such information? Does your company build ships?"

Lena's smile was sharp as winter wind. "At the moment, no. Let us simply say I find engineering challenges... intellectually stimulating. Do we have an arrangement, Mr. Daniels? Or would you prefer continuing your charming assault upon innocent guests?"

Kent stared at her for a long moment, clearly despising every aspect of this bargain but seeing no alternative. When he extended his hand, she noticed the calluses, the honest wear of genuine labor.

"One meeting with Sickles. Your word."

"My word," she agreed, accepting his handshake. His palm was warm, rough against her silk glove—unexpectedly solid, real in a way that made her suddenly conscious of her own soft hands. The contact lasted a moment longer than necessary before they both stepped back.

"Though I do hope you'll cultivate some manners before then," she added, fighting an odd breathlessness. "The general has little patience for rustic melodrama."

Kent studied her face as if seeing something unexpected there. "And I hope you'll consider that some things matter more than dinner parties and dancing. You might find it... illuminating."

They stood there, mutual dislike crackling between them like electricity before a storm, yet something else threading through—awareness, perhaps, or grudging respect neither wanted to acknowledge.

Then Kent gave her a stiff nod and walked away, leaving Lena alone among the glittering crowd.

She watched his retreating figure cut through silk and evening coats headed for the exit with single-minded purpose, noting how he didn't pause to apologize or smooth over earlier confrontations. Remarkable, she thought despite herself. When did I last encounter someone who wasn't calculating every word for advantage?

The realization stung. Kent had looked at her—really looked—and seen nothing but another pampered socialite hosting parties, one of the "vultures". Not the engineer who'd redesigned her father's factories.

How dare he. Yet beneath wounded pride, her mind was already examining possibilities. Revolutionary ironclad designs. A captured engineer with strategic knowledge. The kind of intelligence that could shift war's balance—or make the right person indispensable to those in power.

Father always said knowledge was the most valuable currency. A private meeting with Sickles could serve her own purposes. And if this Kenny Li truly possessed innovations worth acquiring...

Lena lifted her champagne glass from the passing mechanical butler's tray, studying golden bubbles rising in perfect lines. Kent might despise her world, but he might hand her the key to something far more interesting than another charity ball.

That Kent Daniels was undeniably attractive, with expressive eyes that revealed every thought, only made his boorishness more infuriating. Beautiful things, in Lena's experience, were meant to be admired—not to lecture her about morality wear and looking at her as if she were personally responsible for every injustice of the war.

Most inconvenient, she mused, watching champagne bubbles rise in endless, perfect lines.

"Lena."

The voice cut through Lena's thoughts as her mother materialized, silk rustling like a snake's warning. "What did you discover about that young man? Has he been removed from the premises."

"His name is Kent Daniels. He came seeking information about a missing friend—a Union marine engineer."

"How utterly common." Lillian's dismissal was absolute. "I trust you've had him escorted out?"

"Actually, Mother, he left on his own, and I've offered to arrange a meeting with General Sickles on his behalf."

The words landed like artillery fire in a quiet field.

"You've done what?"

"Mr. Daniels' friend possesses valuable technical knowledge regarding ironclad construction," Lena continued, unruffled by her mother's shock. "Revolutionary designs that could prove strategically significant. I've agreed to facilitate an audience with the general in exchange for access to that information."

"Have you lost your senses? That boorish provincial insulted our guests—"

"I found his directness... interesting."

"Interesting," Lillian repeated, each syllable dripping ice. "Your father would be appalled."

"Father," Lena said quietly, "would understand strategic value when presented clearly."

Lillian's jaw tightened, silk fan snapping shut with decisive finality. For a long moment she studied her daughter—the stubborn set of shoulders, the calculating gleam that was pure Lionel.

"Strategic value." The words emerged brittle. "Very well. Your father did teach you to recognize opportunity, even in... unconventional packages." Her gaze swept the ballroom, lingering on General Sickles' table where the mechanical card shuffler continued its quiet work. "But mark me, Lena—if this arrangement damages our standing with the military contractors, I will hold you personally accountable."

"Understood, Mother."

Lillian's expression softened fractionally, though her voice remained steel. "And for heaven's sake, I hope you ensure that the young man bathes before any meeting with the general. He smelled of honest labor."

She swept away in a rustle of silk, leaving Lena alone with her champagne and the faint ghost of calloused hands against her glove. Around them, the orchestrion's mechanical melodies played on, its bronze cherubs spinning in eternal clockwork rhythm.

Let him think me a spoiled rich girl, she decided, though the dismissal stung more than it should. We'll see who underestimated whom.

The night air bit through Kara's jacket as she navigated toward Kenny's house to talk with Mrs. Li.

"You know nothing about me or my family's enterprises."

The hurt in Lena's voice shouldn't matter. Kara had insulted a dozen people tonight—none of their reactions had followed her into the street. But she kept seeing that flash in green eyes, that moment before the ice reformed.

Stop. Kara pushed the thought away.

Kenny wasn't here. And Kara was bargaining away his life's work to a woman who'd looked at her like a mechanism to reverse-engineer. It made her skin prickle when she remembered those green eyes narrowing in assessment.

What made her replay their argument?

What am I doing? Kara climbed the farmhouse steps. She had a promise to collect on, a friend to find. Nothing about Miss Luthor—her porcelain skin or sharp mind or that flicker of hurt beneath the ice—mattered beyond this bargain.

She just needed Lena to keep her word.

And then I never have to think about her again.

Mrs. Li opened the door before Kara could knock, lamplight spilling across the porch. Her eyes—Kenny's eyes—took in Kara's shorn hair and borrowed suit without surprise.

"Come in, child."

"I met someone who might help," Kara said, the words tumbling out. "She has connections to General Sickles, but she wants Kenny's blueprints. The ironclad designs. Everything."

Mrs. Li was quiet for a long moment. "And you trust this person?"

"No." The honesty came easier than expected. "But she's the only chance we have."

"Then take what you need." Mrs. Li moved to a locked cabinet, produced a key from her apron pocket. Inside, Kenny's life's work lay organized in careful folders—schematics, calculations, notes in his precise handwriting. "My son believed these designs could save lives. If they can bring him home..."

Together, they gathered papers, Kara's hands shaking as she recognized Kenny's sketches, his improvements to her suggestions. Tucked in the back sat a small model—the prototype they'd built together, its copper plates gleaming dull in lamplight.

"Take it all," Mrs. Li whispered. "Bring my boy back."

The Luthor mansion loomed against the gray morning sky, its facade of white marble and dark mahogany as imposing as any fortress. Kara, dressed as Kent, shifted the weight of Kenny's work under her arm—schematics, calculations, the small copper-plated model wrapped carefully in canvas. Everything she'd promised Lena Luthor.

She lifted the brass knocker, let it fall.

A servant in crisp livery answered—older man, gray at the temples, expression professionally neutral as it swept over her suit and work boots.

"Trade entrance is around back," he said, already closing the door.

"I'm here to see Miss Luthor." Kara kept her voice level, pitched low like Alex had taught her. "She's expecting this delivery."

The servant's eyebrow rose fractionally. "Miss Luthor receives no callers at this residence."

Before Kara could argue, heels clicked against marble from somewhere inside. A woman appeared in the doorway—older, and imposingly elegant. Her silk morning dress probably cost more than Kara's entire farm.

"Who is it, Harrison?"

"A tradesman, madam. Insisting Miss Lena requested—"

"Kent Daniels," Kara interrupted, meeting the woman's gaze—so like Lena's it made her chest tighten unexpectedly. "I have a delivery for your daughter. Engineering documents she requested."

Mrs. Luthor's expression shifted to something between disdain and calculation. Her eyes raked over Kara's simple attire, lingering on the canvas-wrapped bundle with unmistakable dismissal.

"Mr. Daniels." Each syllable dripped condescension. "My daughter is not present. Whatever... arrangement... you believe you've made, I suggest you redirect your efforts to more appropriate venues." Her smile was sharp enough to draw blood. "The factory. Corner of Water and Dover. I'm certain someone there can direct you to wherever Lena has chosen to spend her morning playing at being useful."

The door closed with decisive finality.

Kara stood on the steps, heat crawling up her neck. Playing at being useful. The casual cruelty of it, the assumption that Lena's work was merely an indulgence rather than—

She caught herself. Why did she care what Lena Luthor's mother thought? But somehow the dismissal stung, not for herself but for the woman who'd looked at her with such fierce pride when defending her family's contributions.

A factory. Miss Luthor actually worked at a factory.

The factory squatted between warehouses like something industrial and alive, its brick walls stained black from years of coal smoke. A brass plaque beside the entrance read Luthor Machines and Munitions in letters that had once gleamed but now wore a patina of soot.

Kara pushed through the main door.

Heat struck her first—furnace breath that smelled heavily of molten metal and machine oil. The floor stretched vast beneath iron-ribbed skylights, filled with the rhythmic clang of drop hammers and the hiss of steam presses. Workers moved between lathes and drill presses, their faces smudged with grease, shirts soaked through despite the winter morning outside.

A foreman approached, wiping hands on an oil-stained rag. "Help you?"

"I'm looking for Miss Luthor."

The man's eyebrows climbed. "Miss Luthor don't see visitors during production hours."

"She'll see me." Kara shifted the canvas bundle. "Tell her Kent Daniels is here with what she requested."

Something flickered across the foreman's face—surprise, maybe, or grudging respect. "Business then, is it? Wait here."

He disappeared into the machinery's depths while Kara stood surrounded by the symphony of industry. A massive steam press descended with deliberate force, shaping red-hot metal into rifle parts. Sparks flew from a grinding wheel where a worker honed barrel rifling with movements precise as surgery.

This was nothing like Kenny's workshop—no gentle tinkering, no theoretical discussions over tea. This was production, relentless and unforgiving.

"Mr. Daniels."

Lena emerged from between two furnaces, and Kara's breath caught despite herself.

Gone was the silk evening gown, replaced by a practical gray dress with sleeves rolled to her elbows. Her dark hair was pinned severely back, and soot smudged one pale cheek. She carried a leather-bound notebook in one hand, charcoal pencil tucked behind her ear.

Beautiful, Kara thought involuntarily. Then: Stop that.

"Miss Luthor." She kept her voice carefully neutral. "I have what you requested."

Lena's gaze dropped to the canvas bundle, and something sharp gleamed in those green eyes. "Follow me."

She led Kara through the factory floor, past workers who kept their heads down and tools moving. They climbed iron stairs to a second-level office—small, sparttan, dominated by a drafting table covered in technical drawings.

"Close the door."

Kara obeyed, suddenly aware of how small the space felt with both of them in it. Lena moved behind the drafting table like it was a fortification, putting furniture between them.

"You actually came."

"I gave my word." Kara set the bundle on the table's edge. "Unlike some people, I keep it."

Lena's jaw tightened, but she didn't take the bait. Instead, she unwrapped the canvas.

The copper model emerged first, catching light from the skylight overhead. Lena lifted it reverently, turning it to examine the turret mechanism, the armor plates, the tiny propeller visible through the stern.

"Remarkable," she breathed.

"Kenny built that." Pride warmed Kara's chest. "The design is his, but I helped with the construction. Making theory work in practice."

Lena set down the model and reached for the schematics. Her fingers traced Kenny's precise lines, lingering on calculations, annotations in the margins. The way she studied them—utterly absorbed, green eyes moving with fierce intelligence—made something twist uncomfortably in Kara's stomach.

Maybe this was why Lena wanted the designs. Not for profit or advantage, but because she understood them. Saw their brilliance the way Kara did.

"These improvements to the turret rotation system..." Lena pulled the charcoal pencil from behind her ear, made a quick notation on her own paper. "Your friend was genuinely gifted."

"Is." Kara's voice came sharper than intended. "Kenny is gifted. Present tense."

Lena glanced up, and for a moment something almost like compassion flickered across her face. "Of course. My apologies."

She bent back over the schematics while Kara waited, fighting the urge to fidget. Outside the office window, the factory floor continued its relentless rhythm—metal against metal, steam hissing, voices calling measurements and adjustments.

Finally, Lena straightened. "This is extraordinary work. Revolutionary, even." She met Kara's eyes directly. "I'll arrange the meeting with General Sickles. Tomorrow evening, seven o'clock, at the Union Club. Can you be there?"

Relief flooded through Kara so suddenly her knees weakened. "Yes. Thank you."

"Don't thank me yet, Mr. Daniels." Lena's smile was sharp. "I'm simply honoring our transaction. Nothing more."

"You really do work here," Kara said before she could stop herself. "Your mother called it playing."

Lena's expression went carefully blank. "My mother has strong opinions about appropriate activities for women of our station."

"And you?"

"I have strong opinions about what I'm capable of accomplishing." Lena gathered the schematics into a neat stack. "Which includes keeping my word, regardless of what certain provincial farmers might assume about my character."

The barb landed, but gentler than before. Almost teasing.

"I never said—"

"You implied quite thoroughly." Lena's eyes met hers, challenging. "Vultures, I believe you called us. War profiteers hosting elaborate parties while good men suffer."

Heat crawled up Kara's neck. "I was angry."

"You were honest." Something shifted in Lena's expression—not quite forgiveness, but acknowledgment. "Seven o'clock tomorrow, Mr. Daniels. Don't be late."

"I won't." Kara moved toward the door, then paused. "And Miss Luthor? For what it's worth... maybe I was wrong. About some things."

"Only some things?"

Despite herself, Kara almost smiled. "I'll let you know after the meeting."

She left before Lena could respond, descending iron stairs back to the factory floor. But she felt green eyes watching her retreat.

Chapter Text

Lena pushed roasted duck around her plate, appetite absent despite the chef's usual excellence. Something felt wrong. The dining room was too warm, the steam-powered climate system humming at a higher pitch than usual, as if compensating for winter cold that hadn't yet arrived. And her mother's posture, spine rigid, shoulders back, carried the particular tension Lillian always assumed before delivering news she knew would be unwelcome.

She's been planning this, Lena realized. All evening.

"You're not eating," Lillian observed from across the table, her own plate barely touched.

"I'm eating." Lena cut a piece of meat, brought it to her lips without tasting it. The duck turned to ash on her tongue.

"You're performing the appearance of eating. There's a difference." Lillian set down her utensils, the silver chiming against bone china. She dabbed her lips with a napkin, and Lena saw it then, a flash of paper beneath the linen placemat at Lillian's elbow. Blue ink, Lex's distinctive slashing handwriting visible even at this distance.

How long has that letter been there? How long has she been waiting for the right moment?

"I've received correspondence from your brother," Lillian said, as if the thought had just occurred to her.

Lena's chest tightened. She reached for her wine glass to hide the reaction, buying time to think. "Has he finally admitted his grand California venture is less profitable than projected?"

"Quite the contrary." Lillian's smile was thin as winter sunlight. "Lex writes with glowing reports of his banking success. Apparently his political influence in San Francisco has grown quite remarkable. Some believe he'll run for mayor within the year."

Of course he will. Lex had always been good at accumulating power like other men collected cigars or fine brandy. "How ambitious of him."

"Ambition runs in the family." Lillian sipped her wine, and for just a moment, something flickered across her face—wistfulness, perhaps, or regret. "Your father used to say that. Do you remember? 'Lillian, our children have my brains and your steel spine. They'll reshape the world.'"

The memory surfaced unbidden: her father at this same table, lamplight catching in his hair, pride warming his voice as he spoke of his children's potential.

Lena's throat tightened. "I remember."

"He would have been so proud of what you've accomplished at the factory." Lillian's voice softened, and for a heartbeat, Lena almost believed she meant it. "Truly, darling. The innovations you've implemented, the efficiency improvements—they're extraordinary."

That's not what she tells others.

"But?" Lena prompted, because there was always a 'but' with Lillian.

"But." Lillian set down her glass. The gaslight seemed to dim, or perhaps it was just the evening pressing against the windows, turning them into black mirrors. "Your father also understood that brilliance needs... proper framing to achieve its full potential. He built an empire, yes, but he also built a family. A legacy." She paused, letting the word settle between them like sediment. "Lex mentioned the social landscape in San Francisco—quite robust for a frontier city. Fresh prospects, he called them. Unspoiled by East Coast... complications."

The air went out of Lena's lungs.

There it is.

This wasn't about Lex's achievements. This was about Marcus Whitman's humiliation at the charity ball, about the string of suitors she'd rejected over the past year—men who saw her inheritance before they saw her face, who wanted a decorative wife to manage their households while they managed her money.

"Mother—"

"I merely observe that opportunities exist beyond New York." Lillian's tone was reasonable, almost gentle, which made it worse somehow. "You've made your feelings regarding local matrimonial prospects abundantly clear. Perhaps a change of scenery would prove... refreshing. A chance to start anew, unburdened by expectations that clearly chafe you here."

"You want me to move to San Francisco." The words emerged flat, mechanical.

"I want you to consider your future beyond factory floors and engineering designs." Lillian leaned forward slightly, and in the candlelight, her face looked almost maternal. Almost concerned. "The war will end eventually, Lena. And when it does, you'll need more than soot-stained ledgers and mechanical innovations. You'll need—" She hesitated, and something raw flashed across her features before the mask reasserted itself. "You'll need what your father and I had. Partnership. Someone to stand beside you when the wolves circle."

Partnership. The word was a knife wrapped in silk.

"Like Father gave you?" Lena heard the cruelty in her own voice but couldn't stop it.

The barb struck home. Lillian's jaw tightened, her fingers curling around the stem of her wine glass until Lena thought it might shatter. But she recovered with the grace of decades of practice.

"Your father and I had an arrangement that served both our interests," she said quietly. "It wasn't always easy. It wasn't always... warm. But it endured. It built something lasting." Her eyes met Lena's, and for just a moment, Lena saw the girl Lillian must have been—young, brilliant in her own way, married off to Lionel Luthor for his money and influence. "You could do far worse than finding similar partnership. I only wish to spare you worse."

The sincerity in her mother's voice was devastating, because Lena could almost believe it. Almost believe that Lillian genuinely thought she was protecting her daughter by marrying her off to some San Francisco politician, by stripping away her independence piece by piece until nothing remained but an ornamental wife with a famous last name.

She believes this is kindness.

"I'll consider it," Lena said, knowing the concession would end this particular skirmish.

"Wonderful." Lillian's relief was palpable, her smile blooming like spring after winter. "Lex would be delighted to host you. I'm certain he has several suitable gentlemen in mind—"

"Don't tell him I'm coming. Not yet." Lena's mind was racing now, calculating angles, looking for escape routes that might not exist. "I'm just going to consider it. The journey alone would be an enormous undertaking."

"I believe you're young enough for the adventure, dear. And honestly, after everything you've managed at the factory, I should think crossing a continent would prove child's play."

"And Mr. Garrett would require your efforts at the factory again, were I to venture away from New York."

Something shifted in Lillian's expression—there and gone too quickly to name, but Lena felt it like a change in air pressure before a storm.

"Mr. Garrett is a capable man," Lillian said carefully. Too carefully. "And I have not forgotten how to manage a ledger." She picked up her wine glass, admiring the way the crystal captured the gaslight, refracting it into bloody prisms. "Should it become necessary for me to step back into a more... active role to secure your future, then it is a sacrifice I would make without a moment's hesitation."

The word hung between them, cloying and heavy as over-sweet perfume. Sacrifice. Lena knew what it meant: a debt she would be expected to repay. A chain disguised as generosity.

"That's very generous of you, Mother."

"It's practical." Lillian set the glass down, her fingers releasing it with visible reluctance. "A proper marriage will do more to secure the Luthor name than any number of new rifle designs. It cements alliances. It produces heirs. It ensures continuity."

The climate system's hum shifted pitch again, now a whine that set Lena's teeth on edge. She wanted to stand, to flee, but her body felt leaden, trapped in this chair by invisible weights.

"Your father, for all his focus on industry, understood that," Lillian continued. Her voice dropped to a confidential murmur that was more threatening than any shout. "His will is quite specific on the matter of his children upholding the family's standing."

Lena's blood went cold. "What are you saying?"

Lillian's eyes—so like Lena's own, that same winter-green—held no warmth now. They were surgical instruments, cutting with precision.

"I am saying that your inheritance is not an unconditional certainty, darling." Each word fell like a stone into still water, ripples spreading outward. "Your father trusted me, as his executor, to ensure his legacy was protected. A daughter who remains unmarried, dabbling in trade while spurning suitable partners..." She paused, letting the implication settle. "Well. It could be seen as a threat to that legacy."

The room tilted.

Lena's vision tunneled, the edges going dark. Her father's factory. Her factory. The place she had poured her heart and mind into, the innovations she had designed and implemented, all of it balanced on a knife's edge. All of it conditional on her compliance.

"The will includes provisions," Lillian said, picking up her fork again with terrible calm, taking a delicate bite of duck. "For scenarios where a child proves... unable to properly steward the family interests. Your brother, as the eldest, would naturally assume—"

"No."

The word escaped before Lena could contain it. Her hand had moved without conscious thought, fingers wrapping around the edge of the table hard enough that the mahogany groaned.

Lillian looked up, something almost like sympathy in her gaze. "I don't wish for that outcome, Lena. Truly. I only want you to understand the stakes. To make an informed decision about your future."

Informed. As if Lillian and Lex hadn't already coordinated this between them, hadn't already decided her fate over correspondence and calculations.

It was all a trap. A pincer movement executed from opposite ends of the continent.

They were exiling her. Shipping her to San Francisco under the guise of opportunity, where she would be married off to some ambitious political ally of Lex's, her dowry a useful tool for his advancement. And the factory—her factory, the place where she had finally found purpose beyond being ornamental—would be handed to Lex on a silver platter.

He would take credit for her innovations. Manage the empire she had salvaged from their father's death from afar. Erase her as thoroughly as if she had never existed.

The thought struck her with the force of a physical blow.

"Just something to consider," Lillian said gently, almost kindly. "As you weigh your options. It would be a tragedy for your hard work at the factory to benefit someone else's children, don't you think?"

The porcelain plate swam before Lena's eyes. The scent of roasted duck turned her stomach—flesh and fat, all of it suddenly nauseating. The climate system whined higher, sucking oxygen from the room until breathing felt like drowning.

She could not sit here for one more second.

Lena released the table. Her hands were shaking—she pressed them flat against her thighs, feeling the silk of her dinner dress bunch beneath her palms. She would not give Lillian the satisfaction of seeing her rattled. Would not flee like a frightened child.

Instead, she stood with deliberate slowness, shoulders back, spine straight. Every inch her mother's daughter in posture if not in purpose.

"Thank you for dinner, Mother," she said, her voice emerging level despite the chaos in her chest. "And for your... counsel. I shall consider it most carefully."

Lillian looked up, a flicker of surprise crossing her face before settling back into cool inquiry. "Lena—"

"Good evening."

Lena turned and walked from the room, each step measured and precise. Her footfalls on marble were the only sound beyond the climate system's mechanical breathing. She did not run. Did not slam doors. Did not give Lillian the drama she might have expected.

But as the dining room door closed behind her with a whisper of wood against wood, Lena's careful control finally cracked.

Her breath came in ragged gasps. The hallway stretched before her, lined with portraits of Luthors past—men in high collars and women in silk, all of them long dead, all of them judging. The family legacy. The precious continuity Lillian was so determined to protect, even if it meant sacrificing her daughter's autonomy on its altar.

They're trying to erase me, she thought, the realization settling into her bones like winter cold. And calling it love.

Lena pressed her palm against the wall—cool plaster, solid and real—and let herself feel the full weight of it. The trap had closed. Lillian and Lex had planned this carefully, leaving her with no good options. Comply and be shipped to California like cargo. Refuse and lose everything she'd built.

The factory. Her work. Her self.

Lena stood in the hallway, hands shaking, mind already calculating escape routes that might not exist.

But she would find one.

She had to.

Because the alternative—becoming the ornamental wife her mother envisioned, letting Lex claim credit for her innovations, disappearing into someone else's legacy—was a death sentence. Not of the body, but of everything that made her her.

And Lena Luthor, for all her faults, had never been good at dying quietly.

Kara felt the coarse fabric of Kenny’s suit jacket and willed her hands to be still as she entered the The Union Club right at seven o'clock. This place was a tomb of quiet power and it smelled of cigar smoke and secrets. Dark wood paneling absorbed the sound of hushed conversations between men who shaped policy over brandy. Alex’s voice echoed in her head. Occupy space. You belong here.

A steward led her down a hall lined with portraits of stern-faced men and stopped at a heavy oak door. “General Sickles is waiting, Mr. Daniels.”

Sickles stood by a cold fireplace, a glass of amber liquid in his hand. The room was a private study, insulated by books looking like they had never been read. He gestured to a leather armchair opposite his own.

“Miss Luthor was most… persuasive.” Sickles set his glass down, the sound heavy in the silence. His tone held none of the ballroom’s dismissive polish. This was a military man assessing a situation. “The ironclad designs your friend developed are not merely innovative. They are a threat.”

Kara sat on the edge of the seat, her muscles coiled.

“We don’t believe Mr. Li was captured by a regular Confederate patrol,” Sickles continued, his voice low. “His disappearance from Virginia fits the profile of a group we’ve been tracking. A secret society. They call themselves the Knights of the Golden Circle.”

The name sounded like something from a cheap novel, but the look in the General’s eyes was anything but fictional.

“They’re fanatics. Secessionists with deep pockets and an ambition to carve out a new empire. They’ve been targeting specialists—engineers, scientists, men like your friend.”

Hope, cold and sharp, pierced through Kara’s dread. This was more than she’d found in months of desperate letters.

“We have an operative,” Sickles said, leaning forward. “A spy, placed within the Confederate Army’s most western command post. In Tucson.”

Arizona. The name was a foreign sound, a place of dust and heat she could barely imagine.

“Two weeks ago, my agent sent a report. A small party of Knights passed through, heading for the California coast. They had a prisoner with them. An engineer, captured in Virginia, who they meant to put to work.”

Sickles paused, his gaze pinning Kara to the chair.

“The prisoner’s name, according to my source, is Li.”

The air left Kara’s lungs in a rush. Li. The name wasn’t common. A marine engineer. From Virginia. It all clicked into place with horrifying, breathtaking clarity. It had to be Kenny.

“The Knights are taking him to California.”

“California?” A place as remote and unreal as the moon. “Why would they take him there? The war is here.”

Sickles swirled the amber liquid in his glass, the gesture deliberate. “Because their war is bigger than the Confederacy’s. The Knights don’t just want to split the country in two. They want to shatter it.”

He leaned back, the leather of his chair groaning. “They see California as the real prize. Rich with gold, isolated from the primary conflict, and possessing a coastline that could control all trade in the Pacific. They believe if they can seize it, they can hold it against a fractured Union.”

The scale of it sent a cold dread down Kara’s spine. This was not about battle lines and regiments. It was about empire.

“But what do they need Kenny for?”

“The same thing the Union needs him for,” Sickles said, his voice dropping. “Ships. Not just any ships. Ironclads. Your Miss Luthor was quick to grasp the strategic importance of your friend’s designs. It seems the Knights of the Golden Circle were, too.”

The pieces clicked into place with horrifying speed. Kenny’s designs, their model in the pond, his belief that such vessels could end the war.

“They’re going to build a fleet,” Kara whispered.

“In secret. On the West Coast.” Sickles finished his drink in one swallow, setting the glass down with a definitive click. “Perhaps hidden somewhere in San Francisco Bay. There are rumors. No proof."

“I knew it! They’re not just holding Kenny prisoner,” Kara realized, the words tasting like ash. “They’re going to force him to build weaponized ships For them.”

“That would make sense.” The General’s gaze was hard, assessing her reaction. “Your friend could become the chief architect of a secret navy intended to steal half the continent out from under us.”

Sickles watched Kara, his expression unreadable. He tapped a finger against his empty glass, the sound sharp and rhythmic in the quiet study. He saw the flicker of fear in the young man's eyes, but he also saw something else. Something hard and resolute. A loyalty that went bone-deep.

"You're a very persistent man, Daniels. And I think, a practical one. As Miss Luthor said, not a simple farmer, eh?

He straightened, his military posture reasserting itself. "The Army needs Kenny Li. We need him before the Knights can turn his genius against us. And I need someone to get him back. Someone motivated. Someone who understands what’s at stake."

His gaze was sharp, probing. "I like the look of you, Daniels. You’ve got grit. You're not some political appointee looking for a title. You've got skin in the game."

Kara’s heart hammered against her ribs. The general was talking to Kent Daniels, a man who didn't exist.

"I am prepared to offer you a commission." The General’s voice was matter-of-fact. "Captain in the Army Corps of Engineers. We'll put you through an abbreviated officer's training—just enough to give you the lay of the land. Your mission will be to travel to California, locate Li, and bring him back to Washington. By any means necessary."

The room tilted. Captain. Her? A captain in the Union Army. The lie she had constructed for a single evening was suddenly threatening to become her entire life. It was a suit of clothes she could not take off, an identity that would swallow her whole.

"I... I'm a farmer." The words were a weak protest, barely a whisper.

"You're a farmer who understands gear-trains and boiler pressure," Sickles countered, his voice sharp. "You’re the man who walked into a ballroom full of vipers to find his friend. That’s the man I want for this."

California. Kenny. An official mission to save him. It was everything she had wanted, wrapped in an impossible, terrifying package. If she said yes, she would be living a lie every hour of every day, a fraud in a captain’s uniform. If she said no, Kenny would be left to his fate.

Her hands clenched into fists at her sides, the fabric of Kenny's trousers rough beneath her fingers.

"I need some time to think about it."

"Don't think too long, Daniels." The general’s voice was hard, all business. "This is a time-sensitive operation. If you're not the man for the job, I'll find someone who is. You have until tomorrow. If you're the man I think you are, "you'll meet me here tomorrow noon."

It could've been humorous, but it wasn't.

The next morning, the roar of the factory was a solid wall of sound that hit Kara the moment she stepped through the gates. She saw Lena near a massive steam press, her dark hair pulled back, gesturing with authority to two mechanics.

Lena spotted her and gave a short, sharp nod toward her office. Kara navigated the chaotic floor, the heat from the forges warming her skin through Kenny’s wool suit. Inside the small office, the din subsided to a dull, constant thunder.

Lena shut the door and turned, her expression all business. "Well? Did Sickles listen?"

"He did more than listen." Kara’s voice felt tight in her own throat. "Kenny’s alive. He is being held by Confederates. They're taking him to California."

She laid out the entire story—the secret society, the plan for a new empire, the hidden fleet Kenny would be forced to build. Lena listened without interruption, her gaze sharpening as the strategic implications became clear.

“California,” Lena murmured, her eyes distant for a moment. She shook her head, dismissing an errant thought. "So they mean to build their own navy.”

“Sickles wants me to stop them.” Kara paced the small space, the floorboards vibrating with the rhythm of the machinery outside. "He offered me a commission. Captain. He wants me to lead a mission to get Kenny back."

Lena’s eyebrows rose. A flicker of something—surprise, maybe respect—crossed her features. "And you're hesitating." It was not a question.

"I fix tractors, Miss Luthor. I'm not a soldier," Kara said, the words feeling thin and useless. "What do I know about leading a mission?"

"You knew enough to identify a fatal flaw in a turret design a dozen engineers missed," Lena retorted, crossing her arms. Her voice was crisp, cutting through Kara’s excuses. "You knew enough to march into my mother's ballroom and demand a meeting with a general. You've come this far, Mr. Daniels. Are you going to falter now, when the path is finally clear?"

She took a step closer, her green eyes intense. "This is your chance. Not just to save your friend, but to stop men who would tear this country apart for their own greed. If you walk away, you will regret it for the rest of your life. You will always wonder what would have happened if you’d just been brave enough to say yes."

The smell of her mother’s beef stew, rich with carrots and thyme, filled the small farmhouse kitchen. It was the scent of home, a scent she had taken for granted her entire life. Now, it was a memory she was consciously carving into her mind.

Jeremiah carved the fresh bread, the knife sighing through the crust. Alex passed her the butter without a word, her sister’s gaze knowing and heavy. Eliza spooned stew onto Kara’s plate, adding an extra piece of beef. A simple, loving gesture that tightened a band around Kara’s chest.

“I’m sorry,” Kara began, the words feeling pitifully small. “For being gone these last few days. I didn’t mean to worry you.”

Eliza’s hand rested for a moment on Kara’s shoulder. “We were just glad to see you walk through that door tonight, sweetheart. That’s all that matters.”

Her mother’s kindness was a physical weight. Tonight. A word that hung in the air, marking a boundary Kara was about to cross. She watched her father eat, his movements steady and familiar, the lines around his eyes a map of worry she had etched there. Alex ate quickly, her jaw tight, refusing to meet Kara’s eyes.

“Any news?” Jeremiah’s voice was low, careful. He did not say Kenny’s name. He did not have to.

“I have a lead.” Kara picked up her fork, the metal cold and heavy. “A good one. It’s… far away. But it’s real.”

“Far away where?” Alex asked, her voice a little too sharp. A warning.

“West,” Kara answered, looking at her plate. “That’s all I know for sure.”

The lie was a small, smooth stone in her mouth. She could feel Lena Luthor’s words echoing in the quiet kitchen. This is your chance. A chance that required her to leave this table, this family, this life. She ate the stew, forcing each bite down past the knot in her throat, memorizing the taste. She memorized the flicker of the lantern on the rough-hewn walls and the sound of her father’s breathing.

Later, in her room under the eaves, the familiar space felt like a stranger’s. The worn quilt her grandmother had stitched. Alex had already gone to bed, a tense “Goodnight” the only acknowledgement of the chasm opening between them.

Kara sat at her small desk, the one her father had built her when she was ten. She pulled out a clean sheet of paper, dipped the pen in the inkwell, and began to write. The words came slowly, each one a betrayal and a prayer.

Dearest Family,

She paused, staring at the words. There was no way to tell them the whole truth. No way to explain Kent Daniels or the commission. She could only give them a piece of it, the piece that mattered.

I have to go away for a while. I know this is sudden, and I am so sorry for the pain it will cause you. I have found an opportunity, a real one, to find Kenny. I cannot explain the details, but it is a chance I have to take. You taught me to never give up on family, and Kenny is family.

Her hand trembled, a drop of ink falling onto the page like a black tear.

The journey will be long, and I don't know when I will be able to write. Please do not worry. Think of me as on a long trip, like Alex when she is at school. I will be careful. I will use everything you taught me to stay safe.

She looked at the walls of her room, at the life she was packing away.

I love you more than anything. More than the farm, more than the summer sky. Never doubt that. I will come home. I promise. Take care of each other.

She signed it simply, Kara.

She folded the letter, leaving it on the center of her pillow where they would find it after sunrise. A small, white flag of surrender and defiance.

A/N: How weird is it to feel like this story is my baby at the moment? I want to cuddle it. That's how weird.

Chapter Text

Like the previous three weeks, morning mist clung to the parade grounds of Camp Defiance, carrying the smell of coal smoke, wet wool, and unwashed men. Kara stood by the artillery park, her hands deep in the pockets of her trousers. The linen binding wrapped around her chest held her in a firm, constant embrace. It was tight, certainly, but not the torture she had feared. It felt more like armor. It was a solid, physical reminder of the role she played and the secrets she kept.

She watched a team of privates struggle to hitch a team of horses to a caisson. The connection pin was bent, she noted from twenty feet away. She could see the stress fracture in the iron.

"You are going to snap that coupling if you force it," she called out. The voice that emerged was the one Alex had drilled into her. It was deeper, flatter, and stripped of any upward inflection effectively.

The private paused, looking at her rank insignia. "It's just stiff, Captain."

"It is fractured. Grab a replacement from the supply wagon before you lame a horse."

The private saluted and scrambled off. Kara let out a breath she didn't realize she was holding. Identifying bad metal was easy. Playing the part of Captain Kent Daniels was the hard labor.

"Sharp eye, Daniels."

Kara turned. Lieutenant Vance, a career officer with a perfectly waxed mustache and a gaze that always felt like an interrogation, leaned against a stack of crates. He had been watching her for days, circling like a shark that sensed blood in the water.

"Just common sense, Lieutenant," Kara replied, turning back to the field.

"Is it?" Vance pushed off the crates and walked toward her. His boots squelched in the mud. "Most political appointees wouldn't know a coupling pin from a bayonet. But you... you are full of surprises."

"I grew up on a farm. We fix our own plows."

Vance stopped beside her, too close. He smelled of tobacco and stale coffee. "A farmer. That explains the manners. But it doesn't explain your special treatment."

Kara stiffened but kept her shoulders rolled back, occupying the space. "I don't know what you mean."

"The physical," Vance said, a smirk playing at the corner of his mouth. "Every soldier in this regiment had to strip down for the camp surgeon. Cough and drop. Checking for hernia, venereal disease, general fitness." He chuckled, a low, grating sound. "Except for Captain Daniels."

Kara's heart hammered against the linen binding. She forced her face to remain bored, unimpressed.

"That was the General's doing. My commission comes directly from his office," she replied smoothly, channeling every ounce of haughty confidence she could. ""He's expedited my training and waived the formalities to save time."

"Is that right?" Vance looked her up and down, his eyes lingering for a second too long on her frame. "Some of the boys were joking that maybe you were just shy. Or that you have some embarrassing affliction you didn't want the sawbones to see. A third nipple, perhaps?"

He laughed, inviting her to join in the crude joke. It was a test. A test of masculinity.

Kara forced a short, dry chuckle. "My orders are to work, not to model for the doctors."

"Touchy," Vance said, but he stepped back. The suspicion hadn't left his eyes, but the moment of danger had passed. "Don't worry, farm boy. The War will strip the modesty out of you soon enough."

"Captain Daniels!"

The shout came from the command tent. General Sickles stood at the entrance, waving a gloved hand.

"Duty calls," Kara said to Vance. She turned on her heel and walked away, focusing on the heavy, rolling gait Alex had taught her. He doesn't know, she told herself. He's just an insecure bully.

Inside the tent, the air was warmer. General Sickles stood over a large map spread across a folding table. He didn't look up as Kara entered.

"You handled Vance well," Sickles said.

Kara froze. "Sir?"

"He's a instigator. Good in a fight, bad for morale. I put him on your tail to see if you would crack." Sickles finally looked up, his eyes clear and devoid of any knowledge of her true secret. He saw only a young, somewhat green officer. "You didn't. You kept your cool."

"He was just curious about my... quick processing."

"Let him be curious. Curiosity doesn't matter. The mission matters." Sickles tapped a finger on the map. He pointed to the jagged blue line of the coast. "We have secured your passage. You depart at 0600."

Kara stepped forward, looking at the map. "The overland route?"

"Steamboat. Sickles traced a line down the coast. "You'll take a steam transport, the Persephone, south to Panama, cross the isthmus by rail, and take a second steamer up to San Francisco." His finger dragged across the emptiness of the map to the Arizona territory. "Then you were going to go overland to Tucson, but yesterday I got word that your friend, Captain Li, is probably already in San Francisco."

"That's not good."

The genera gave a stiff nod. "Anyway, steamboat is faster than the wagon trails across the plains, and less likely to be intercepted by Confederate cavalry."

"A steam ship," Kara repeated.

"It's still a long voyage, Captain"

Kara thought of the linen binding, of the nights she would have to spend changing in the dark, of the constant vigilance required on a ship where there was nowhere to run.

"I can handle it, General."

"Good." Sickles rolled up the map. "Your friend, Captain Li? If you can't find him in San Francisco, you'll have to pick up his trail in Tucson. Try not let it come to that."

"I won't let him down."

"It's not him I'm worried about, son. It's the war." Sickles extended a hand.

Kara took it. Her grip was firm, her hand calloused from years of farm work and weeks of weapon drills. It felt right.

"Just bring him back to Washington, Captain."

"Yes, sir."

Kara exited the tent back into the gray morning. Lieutenant Vance was gone. The coupling pin on the caisson had been replaced. The machinery of war was moving, grinding forward, and she was now a cog deep inside it.

She began to walk toward the quartermaster to collect her kit. Act one was over. The real performance was about to begin.

The New York docks were a sensory assault that no amount of wealth could filter out. Salt spray stung Lena's eyes as wind whipped loose strands of dark hair across her face. The air tasted of brine and rotting fish. Timber groaned against stone pilings as the tide pulled at moored vessels, and somewhere a steam whistle shrieked.

Lena stood amidst the mayhem, a gloved hand pressed to her nose, surrounded by a fortress of trunks that represented everything she was and everything she was being forced to leave behind.

The Persephone. She had stared at the ticket Lillian had arranged, the name mocking her. Persephone, dragged to the underworld by Hades, her mother Demeter powerless to prevent it. How fitting. Except in this version, her own mother was the one doing the dragging, shipping her across two oceans to the edge of the known world, all to satisfy the Luthor obsession with legacy and respectability.

Her father would have understood. Lionel had valued innovation, brilliance, the courage to build something new. But her father was dead, and his will had become a weapon in Lillian's hands.

"Careful!" Lena stepped forward, her voice cutting through the din as a burly porter slammed her largest trunk onto a handcart with unnecessary force. "That case contains delicate optical equipment. If you shatter the lenses, the cost will come out of your wages for the next three years."

The porter wiped sweat from his forehead with a grimy forearm and spat onto the cobblestones. "Lady, it weighs a ton. What you got in there? Your whole house?"

"Books," Lena lied smoothly, though the trunk actually contained the disassembled prototype of her repeating rifle mechanism, three heavy brass microscopes, and enough technical drawings to rebuild half her father's factory. Equipment she would not allow Lex to claim. Tools she might need to prove herself in California, or anywhere else she ended up. "And my wardrobe. Move it with care."

"I ain't moving it nowhere without help," the man grunted, leaning against the cart. "Need another hand for this one. You'll have to wait."

"Wait?" Lena checked the small watch pinned to her lapel, its delicate gears visible through the crystal face. Another of her father's gifts, precision made tangible. "The ship departs in forty minutes. I cannot wait for you to find motivation."

"Then find someone else to haul lead," the man retorted, turning his back to light a cheap cigar.

Heat flashed through Lena's chest, the familiar indignation of being dismissed, of being treated as if her needs were inconvenient rather than urgent. This was exactly why she preferred machines to people. A steam piston did not argue. A gear train did not demand tips or complain about weight. Machines were predictable, logical, obedient.

She looked around the crowded dock, searching for a supervisor, a police officer, anyone who might respond to the Luthor name with something other than resentment or greed.

Instead, she saw a uniform.

A Union officer was cutting through the crowd with a purposeful, rolling gait that suggested military training overlaid on something more fundamental. He wore the dark blue coat of the Army Corps of Engineers, brass buttons gleaming even in the diffuse morning light. A forage cap was pulled low over blonde hair, shading his face, but his movements carried an efficiency that was almost graceful.

He stopped a few feet away, his gaze sweeping the scene with the calm assessment of someone used to solving problems.

"Trouble here?"

The voice carried quiet authority. The porter straightened involuntarily, the universal human response to military bearing.

Lena turned, ready to deploy the Luthor name like the weapon it was, to demand assistance from this representative of federal power.

"This man refuses to load my luggage," she began, her voice carrying the crisp edge of someone accustomed to being obeyed. "He claims it is too—"

The words died in her throat.

Under the brim of the cap, familiar blue eyes widened in shock. The officer's jaw, which had been set in a line of grim determination, went slack. For a heartbeat, they simply stared at each other across the chaos of the docks.

"Miss Luthor?"

The recognition was mutual and equally startled. Lena blinked, her mind cataloging the differences. The jawline appeared more defined. The uniform was a far cry from his suit but there was no mistaking the earnest intensity of his eyes, the directness of the gaze that had both irritated and intrigued her.

"Mr. Daniels?" She scanned the insignia on his shoulder straps, the single bars of a captain. "Captain Daniels, I should say."

Kent Daniels looked her up and down, and Lena felt suddenly conscious of her own appearance. Her traveling suit of grey wool was practical rather than fashionable, chosen for durability over elegance. The bonnet shielding her face from the salt spray was equally utilitarian. And surrounding her were her trunks, her equipment, the physical manifestation of everything she refused to leave behind.

"You're leaving," he said. It was not a question. It sounded strangely like an accusation, as if her presence on these docks represented a betrayal of some unspoken compact.

"I am traveling," she corrected, recovering her composure. Control, her father had taught her, was everything. Never let them see uncertainty. "To visit my brother in San Francisco. Though at this rate, my luggage will remain on the dock while I sail without it." She gestured to the sullen porter. "Apparently, my belongings are too substantial for professional laborers."

Kent looked at the porter, then at the trunk in question. Something shifted in his expression, a small wry smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. It transformed his face from stern soldier to something younger, almost boyish. The change was disarming.

"Heavy reader?" he asked, and there was warmth in his voice that had not been present at the ball.

"Something like that."

"Well," Kent said, stepping forward with sudden decisiveness. He unbuttoned the bottom of his dress coat to allow for movement, revealing a plain cotton shirt beneath. "We cannot have you missing the tide."

"Sir, you don't want to touch that," the porter warned, blowing smoke through yellowed teeth. "It's dead weight. Needs a team of two, maybe three."

"I'm used to heavy lifting," Kent replied. He stepped up to the trunk, which was large enough to hold a body and reinforced with iron bands at the corners.

Lena watched, expecting him to struggle, to embarrass himself, to prove once again that men were full of bluster and little substance when faced with actual physical challenge. She prepared a scathing comment about the foolishness of male ego, the words already forming on her tongue.

Kent bent his knees, gripped the leather handles with both hands, and lifted.

His movements were smooth, controlled, almost casual. He pivoted on his heel and set the trunk gently onto the porter's cart, the wood groaning and the wheels creaking in protest under the sudden weight.

Lena stared, her prepared insult forgotten.

Kent straightened, dusting off his hands with the same casual efficiency. He caught Lena's look and flushed slightly, a touch of color rising in his cheeks. He adjusted his collar, suddenly self-conscious.

"Farm work," he muttered. "You learn to lift with your legs. Leverage."

Kent turned to the porter, and his voice carried a note of command that brooked no argument. "Get this to the purser. Now."

The porter didn't argue. He stubbed out his cigar and began pushing the cart toward the gangway, putting his entire body weight into the effort.

"Thank you," Lena said, and the words felt foreign on her tongue. Gratitude was not an emotion she expressed often. Self-sufficiency had been her armor for too long. "He picked up her smaller valise—the one containing her journals and personal effects—and gestured toward the ship. "You're sailing on The Persephone?"

"Unfortunately." Lena fell into step beside him as they moved toward the gangplank, weaving through the chaos of departing passengers and cargo. "It seems I am to be exiled in comfortless utilitarianism. My mother booked passage on what appears to be a floating warehouse rather than a proper passenger vessel."

"Could be worse," Kent said. "Could be a troop transport. I have heard those are more floating prisons than warehouses."

"And you?" Lena glanced at him sidelong. "I assume the Army is shipping you out. To find your friend?"

"San Francisco as well," he confirmed, voice tightening slightly. "You were right. I would have regretted not taking this chance."

"I am usually right, Captain. Its a burden I have learned to bear." She paused, something almost playful entering her tone. "Though I confess, being correct does grow tedious. I sometimes wish to be wrong, simply for the novelty."

Kent laughed, a genuine, warm sound that cut through the mechanical noise of the docks like sunlight through fog. It was disarming. Unexpected. "And modest, too."

"Modesty is for people with no other virtues to recommend them." She glanced at him from beneath the brim of her bonnet, studying his profile. He looked different in the uniform. More assured. Whatever stiffness he had carried at the ball, whatever discomfort had made his movements seem constrained, had settled into a military posture that actually suited him. "You look... different. More comfortable in your skin."

"And you look like you are bringing enough equipment to build a factory in California. Are you planning to industrialize San Francisco single-handedly?"

"One never knows what the frontier might require. I prefer to be prepared." She heard the defensiveness in her own voice and hated it. Why did she feel the need to justify herself to this farm boy turned soldier?

"Besides, I have no intention of arriving empty-handed and dependent on the charity of strangers. Self-sufficiency is a virtue I value highly."

"Is that what this is?" Kent gestured to the parade of luggage being loaded ahead of them. "Self-sufficiency? Or are you bringing your entire world with you because you are afraid of what you will find when you get there?"

The observation landed with unexpected force. Lena felt her jaw tighten, her defenses rising automatically. "You presume a great deal, Captain."

"Maybe." He met her gaze directly, and there was no malice in his expression, only a frank curiosity that somehow made it worse. "But I know what it is like to leave home for something uncertain. The instinct is to bring everything that makes you feel safe. Even if it weighs a ton."

They paused at the foot of the gangplank. The Persephone loomed above them, a hybrid beast of steam and sail, black smoke drifting lazily from its single stack. The vessel was functional rather than beautiful, built for cargo and efficiency rather than passenger comfort. It smelled of coal and tar and the sea itself.

"So," Lena said, changing the subject with deliberate precision. "We are to be shipmates."

Kent shifted the valise to his other hand. "It's a long trip to Panama. Three weeks, if the weather holds. Please try not to start any fights with the other passengers."

"Oh, but it's the other way around. I only fight when provoked, Captain."

"And you find everyone provoking."

"Present company excluded?" she offered, surprising herself with the concession.

Kent looked at her then, really looked at her, with that same unnerving sincerity he had shown in her office when she had agreed to help him. His blue eyes seemed to see past the armor of expensive clothing and cutting words, searching for something genuine beneath. "Maybe. We'll see how you handle three weeks of salt pork and rough seas. I have heard the crossing can be... challenging."

"I suspect I shall manage better than you think," Lena replied coolly, though her stomach tightened at the thought. She had never been to sea. The unknown stretched before her like a void. "I am a Luthor. We endure."

"I don't doubt it." His voice carried something that might have been respect.

He extended an arm to help her up the steep incline of the gangplank.

Lena hesitated. She did not need help walking. She did not need a farmer-turned-captain to guide her as if she were some delicate Society flower likely to swoon at the first sign of physical exertion. The impulse to refuse, to assert her independence, rose sharp and immediate.

But the crowd was pressing in behind them, impatient to board. And, there was something reassuring about the solid presence of him, something that made the terrifying unknown ahead seem fractionally less daunting.

She placed her hand on his forearm, fingers resting lightly on the blue wool of his sleeve. Through the fabric, she felt corded muscle.

Their eyes met, and for a heartbeat, the chaos of the docks receded. Something passed between them, unspoken and undefined. Not quite trust, but perhaps the beginning of it.

"Lead the way, Captain," Lena said quietly. "And please do not make me regret admitting you to this ship."

"Wouldn't dream of it," Kent replied, and together they stepped off the solid earth of New York and onto the shifting, uncertain deck of The Persephone.

The wood moved beneath Lena's feet, alive with the rhythm of the tide, and she gripped Kent's arm a fraction tighter. Ahead, through the forest of masts and rigging, she could see the open water of the harbor, grey and endless.

California. Exile. An uncertain future dictated by her mother's will and her father's ghost.

But also, perhaps, freedom. The chance to prove herself away from the Luthor name, to build something that was entirely her own. And if this strange captain was making the same journey...

Well. Perhaps the voyage would not be entirely without interest.

Behind them, the porter finally wrestled the last of her trunks aboard, swearing creatively in three languages. The ship's bell rang, signaling imminent departure.

No turning back now, Lena thought, and felt a thrill of something that might have been fear or might have been anticipation.