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Alfrun tilted her head, and she looked so inhuman that a shiver raced up my back. There was nothing behind those pale eyes but the joy of cruelty. “Let us see it then.”

“Wait,” Helena said, stepping forward. “Bring Lilja first. We want to know she’s still alive.”

A sob lodged itself in my chest at hearing the words spoken, but Helena was right. Alfrun might just be playing some game with us. We needed that guarantee.

“No,” Alfrun said.

Helena put her hands on her hips. “Yes. And now if you please.”

Hrafn cleared his throat. “Your Majesty, there might be sound reason to fetch Eivor. You’ll want the rebel to witness her own demise. It’ll beat the defiance out of her. She’ll submit when she realizes there’s no hope for her.”

Alfrun narrowed her eyes on Helena, then looked at me and Alma. She waved a hand. “Bring me Eivor.” Two soldiers disappeared through a door behind the dais. For the first time today, relief fluttered like bird wings in my middle.

Lilja was alive.

Chapter Forty

While we waited, I glanced at the soldiers, attempting to think this all through with Alma’s quick mind. How were elves related? How did they see each other? If Alfrun had tossed all her subjects in her dungeons, then perhaps some of these soldiers had lost someone they cared about. It made sense to me, but did it to them? Did they have hearts capable of love? Something in their eyes, in the way some of them had shifted as Alfrun spoke, made me think the answer to that was yes.

And then there was Hrafn. He was as slippery as an eel, speaking with two tongues. Even I saw that, but did Alfrun? Or was she blinded by years of flattery? Had these men’s servility dulled her instinct for treachery?

The door opened again, and my heart was in my throat. Would Lilja be hurt? What if they had done some sort of magic to her? What if she… what if she no longer remembered me? No longer loved me?

I got part of my answer soon enough. The soldiers dragged her inside. She walked between them without a limp. Her spine was straight, her chin held high, and she had a streak of blood across her cheek, but it didn’t look like it came from her because her face had no cuts or scrapes. It had only been seven days, and her hair hung in tangled robes down her back. Her beautiful red dress was ripped at the hem, and the collar of her cloak had been nearly torn off. The shawl I had given her was gone.

When she saw me, her eyes filled with tears, and that gave me the rest of my answer. I swiped my sleeve across my own eyes and smiled at her, lifting the box ever so slightly to show her I had kept my promise. I had come back for her. I had done everything I could.

The soldiers brought her down the dais to stand below Alfrun and her minions. She was so close that I could have touched her, but I didn’t dare. Not yet. My eyes fell to her hand. It was covered in dried blood.

“Now let’s see it,” Alfrun said, pointing at me with her staff.

Holding the box with one arm, I removed the lid, and Alma was there to take it from me. I stepped up to the dais and held the box out. Stali gestured for a soldier to bring it to him.

It felt odd to let it leave my hands, like a cold absence. Almost like I had felt without Lilja by my side in the sleigh, without her next to me in my bed. The soldier placed the box by Stali’s feet with a bow, and the master artisan glowered down at it.

“Well,” Alfrun said with an impatient waggle of her fingers, “pick it up. Let’s see what folly this human brings.”

I couldn’t breathe as Stali bent down. His hands were like shovels, making the doll appear impossibly small as he held it. She was beautiful, delicate against his roughened and scarred skin.

Stali’s eyes narrowed, and his jaw clenched so tight the muscles went taut under his pale skin. Did he sense the hazel wood beneath the paint? I glanced at Hrafn. Had he tricked us? Would Stali command us killed where we stood for this slight of having reminded him of the loss of his eye?

He turned the doll in his hand, studied her hair, then her shoes and stockings. He gazed at her face the longest, staring into her dark gemstone eyes. Running one of his meaty fingers over the glass locket, there was a sudden softness to his rough features. Like… like he had recalled some deep but dear memory. His hand caught on the pendant beneath the cotton and he pulled up the dress. The silver shone in the light from the chandelier. Faith. Hope. Love.

This time I thought it was wonder I glimpsed on his face.

I gathered all my courage, even finding some I didn’t know I had, and asked, “What’s your verdict, then?”

Stali’s voice was so very different when he spoke. No gruffness, but something like… well, like emotion, and I realized I hadn’t yet heard that in any elf but Lilja. He was under the doll’s spell. Alma’s runes had worked. It had to be the explanation.

“It’s… it’s masterful,” he said.

“But is it better than your work?” Helena demanded.

Stali’s answer was simple. “Yes.”

“You used magic to make this,” Alfrun said with a look at me that might have made boiling water freeze.

“So?” Alma countered. “You never do anything that’s not magic.”