The White Rabbit drew himself up, looking ruffled, and led her down the hall without another word. Alice followed him through winding passages and down cold stone staircases lined with musty tapestries. Finally, he pushed open a creaking wooden door and led her out into a wide courtyard. He stopped outside the stables and pointed with one trembling white paw.
“The sword’s hidden inside. Be careful, Alice,” he said.
Alice bent down to push the door open. A horrible stench hit her nostrils, and both she and the White Rabbit covered their faces, trying not to gag.
“I know that smell,” Alice said in a muffled voice suffused with horror.
Sure enough, when she’d worked up the courage to look inside, she spotted the Bandersnatch lying in its stall with its huge ugly bulldog head on its paws. It moaned, clawing at the blood-soaked straw underneath it. Even in the dim light, Alice could see the empty socket oozing blood and goop where the eye had been.
“I’m not going in there!” Alice cried. “Look what that thing did to my arm!” She held out her scratched arm and noticed that the wound had gotten much worse. It was larger and very swollen, with angry red welts rising around the scratches.
The White Rabbit gasped and clapped his paws to his face in horror. “Dear, oh, dear!” he fretted. “Why haven’t you mentioned this?”
Alice studied her arm, tilting it back and forth in the moonlight. “It wasn’t this bad before,” she pointed out.
The Rabbit’s breath was coming in fast pants. He flapped his paws as if trying to revive himself, but in the end he failed and fell over in a dead faint.
Well, that’s useful, Alice thought wryly, looking down at the collapsed rabbit. She looked back at the castle, considering her next move.
It took some searching, but eventually she found Mallymkun. The Dormouse was standing in an upstairs hall, looking into a room; then she shut the door. “Hatter, where are you? Hatter?” she called out in a whisper.
“Mallymkun!” Alice called, hurrying up. “Do you still have the Bandersnatch eye?”
“Right here,” said the Dormouse, hitching up her maid’s skirt to reveal that she was wearing her breeches underneath. The Bandersnatch eye still hung at her waist.
“I need it,” Alice said.
“Come and get it!” Mallymkun replied.
Alice quickly and easily grabbed the eye from the Dormouse.
“Hey! Give it back,” the Dormouse said, drawing her hatpin sword and brandishing it dangerously.
But Alice missed the Dormouse’s threat; she was running pell-mell down the long staircases, hoping she remembered the right way to the stables.
Alice sensed someone behind her, practically breathing down her neck. She tried to move away, but he grabbed the arm that had been scratched by the Bandersnatch. Alice let out a yelp of pain. Ignoring her cry, the man pushed her against the wall. It was Stayne, the Knave.
“I like you, Um,” he murmured. “I like largeness.”
He leaned in for a kiss as Lady Long Ears went past.
“Get away from me!” Alice cried, kicking Stayne as hard as she could. She didn’t look back as she ran away, but she could feel the heat of his glare all the way down the hall.
Finally, Alice found a familiar-looking door and stumbled out into the paved courtyard. The White Rabbit still lay prone on the cobblestones. Alice hurried past him and held her breath as she entered the stable.
The Bandersnatch saw her coming and growled fiercely. Even wounded, it was terrifying. Its shark-like teeth gnashed as if it were daring her to come closer and get eaten.
“I have your eye,” said Alice, holding it aloft.
The monster’s demeanor changed instantly. Its tail lashed along the floor and it whined, leaning toward the eye with a piteous expression. Alice slowly lifted the bar of the stall door and eased inside. She held out the eye and he whined again, scrabbling toward it across the straw. Alice carefully put it near him on the floor, and he started sniffing it frantically. With another whine, he pulled the eye closer with his paws to examine it more closely.
While he was distracted, Alice squeezed past him to the back of the stall, where she found a low rectangular object covered by a tarp. When she pulled the tarp back, it revealed an ornate metal chest—exactly the sort of thing one might keep a Vorpal Sword in.
Unfortunately, it was secured with a large lock . . . exactly what one might use to keep Vorpal Sword– stealers out. Sweating and shivering, poisoned by her wound, she tugged at the lock.
Disheartened and feverish, Alice slumped to the ground. She’d been running on adrenaline, but the pain in her arm was starting to catch up with her. She felt feverish and woozy. She could barely muster the strength to pull back her sleeve and look at the swollen, infected wound again. Carefully, she tried touching it, but pulled back quickly with a stifled cry of pain.
The Bandersnatch was still busy fussing over his eye, but that couldn’t last all night. Sweating and shivering, Alice pulled at the lock, then halfheartedly kicked it with frustration. Her vision was starting to dim. She blinked, shaking her head.
And the world went black.