But in her pocket, she found a single gray pebble.
She walked anyway.
“You’ll what ?”
“Child,” said the youngest Graia, “if you lose them, we will find you. Not in a year. Not in a century. Eventually .” Searching for- Graias Alice in Action in-All Ca...
“Lend it to me,” Alice said. “Just until I reach the door. You can see through it still—I’ll carry it in my palm. You’ll watch everything I do. If I lie or falter, you’ll know. And you can take your tooth back as well—I’ll bite through any rope or chain I find.”
When the Jabberwock’s cousin—a thing of rusted gears and leather wings—swooped down, Alice did not run. She spat the tooth into her hand and bit through a falling portcullis of black iron, creating a door where none existed. When the mist grew thick as muslin, she held up the Graiae’s eye and saw, through their ancient sight, the hidden seams in the world.
“Thank you,” she whispered to the eye. It blinked once—warm, almost kind. But in her pocket, she found a single gray pebble
“Let her keep the stone,” whispered the third. “Every Alice needs an extra eye in the dark.”
At the lake’s bottom was a door no larger than a rabbit hole. Alice knelt.
She placed the eye and the tooth on the final step, where the Graiae could retrieve them later. Then she pulled the handle. Not in a year
“She acted,” said one.
The first sister held up a single yellowed fang. “You want to go home? Then you must act . Not tumble. Not cry. Act . But the only door is at the bottom of the Cinder Lake, and the lake is guarded by the Jabberwock’s cousin.”
Alice nodded. She tucked the eye into her coat pocket—where it immediately rolled to face forward—and slipped the tooth between her teeth. It fit like it had always been there.