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Alma wrote all that down on her sketch. “Maybe we ought to have an actual flower on her somewhere?”

“How?”

Alma tapped the pen against her lips. “Remember that glass locket you found among the jewels in my father’s shop? We put a pressed flower inside and hang it around her neck on ribbon.”

“Which flower?”

“A lily-of-the-valley, of course,” Helena said.

I felt how my brow curled into a frown. “Aren’t we just mocking them, then?”

“We want to mock them,” Helena argued. “We want to remind them that Lilja almost defeated them once.”

That made sense, even if the thought of angering them made my hands and feet prickle with fear. I liked the idea of honoring Lilja and her bravery.

“How are we getting a pressed lily-of-the-valley, though?” I asked. “It’s January.”

“Luck,” Alma said with a wily sort of smile. “A few months ago I bought a used copy of Emilie Carlén for the store. When I opened it, someone had used it for flower pressing. There was a lily-of-the-valley among them.”

“How do we do the hair?” Helena asked.

I ate a spoonful of oatmeal as I considered. It was burned and not very good, but I was ravenous after my morning of chopping. “I have to keep thinking about that,” I said. “I’m not sure.”

Alma emptied her cup. “Now for the symbols. I was thinking Selma could paint them on the doll’s chest. Like the one Stali made?”

“Won’t he know we’re tricking him then?” I asked.

“Simple,” Helena said. “Make the torso hollow. Hide the symbols inside.”

Alma looked across at me. “Is that possible?”

“It’ll take longer.”

“But it’ll be worth it.”

I nodded. “I think so too.” We needed every single advantage we could get, and with the magic symbols, we were wielding their own weapon.

Alma flipped the book on elvish open. “Let’s decide which symbols. Then we’ll get to work.”

Chapter Thirty-Five

Ilet myself sit at my bench and turn the pieces of hazel wood in my hands for a while before I got started. It had to be perfectly done and in such a short amount of time. Alma’s notes lay next to me—one with the sketch of the doll and one with the symbols to go inside.

We had chosen seven—like Lilja’s bracelet. Bravery. Honesty. Fairness. Loyalty. Kindness. Forgiveness. Those six, we had agreed, were the most beautiful of them all. The last one was a so-called glamour, which we hoped would mask any imperfections to Stali’s eyes.

Helena was at the table, cutting the deep blue fabric. It wasn’t the dress itself that would take up her time, but the intricate embroidery. Alma was with us too. She had pulled a chair over to the oven, and she leafed through the book again, writing down something in her notebook here and there.

I picked up one of the bigger pieces of hazel. It was to be the torso, and besides the hollowing out, this would be the easiest part. With my gouge, I set to shaping an ovoid, changing to ever smaller tools as I got closer to the final form. When I was happy with the general shape, I sanded the whole thing before I drew a line straight down the middle with my gauge. Suspending the wood in the vise, I sawed it in half. Using the gouge again, I set to hollowing out one.

“Remember what the soldier said about lead?” Alma asked. “That it might hurt them.”

Helena looked up from her sewing. “That’s no different from us. A bullet would tear through our chests.”

“But lead holds a special place in history. In alchemy, it’s considered the oldest of the seven metals. Maybe there’s a reason for that?”

“What about copper?” I said. “Alfrun shrank away from the wire on my Christmas tree?”

“It’s one of the seven metals too. It represents femininity and intuition.”