24
Cinder was an ashen girl, dressed in tattered cloth, and her skin was not only covered in cinder but glazed with it, as if she had never washed. She paced briefly before me and then sat in front of a clay pot near an oven, flaring with so much heat I had to back away a little. I noticed she limped when she walked, but I was told not to ask much. Cinder sat with her blowpipe next to the oven, uninterested in our presence. Amalie had told me Cinder resembled a Phoenix on the way to her small cottage at the shores of Murano. Her curling hair atop and behind her head made her look like one. Fiery, unmistakable hair, hardly affected by the cinder, although it had been exposed to it many times.
"Please sit down as I finish my Art," she said, and continued blowing the blowpipe into the fire. Amalie had told me they suspected Cinder had lived a thousand lives, always ended by some fire known and documented by historians. There was no evidence of it, though, and they doubted Cinder herself knew it. All Amalie was sure of was that Cinder's mother had given birth to her in the thirteenth century, a few weeks after she had escaped the Piper of Hamlin. To my surprise, Cinder's mother was one of the Lost Seven who had escaped, like my father had once told me. Still, I couldn't find my place in this centuries-long story—although I know all about it now.
"Carmilla needs an escape, a new life, with her lover Angel," Amalie told Cinder. "I know you know the way to other realms."
Amalie had told me Cinder only knew this because of her many lives and travels through them. She had even told stories about the sixteenth-century burning of London, although she never knew how she knew. All she said was that her mother had told her—a mother by the name of Bianca, one of the first glassblowers escaping to Murano, who had died centuries ago. Strangely, Cinder seemed to think her mother had only died recently.
"The ways to other worlds aren't through land," Cinder said. "You have to cross the Seven Seas."
"The Seven Seas lead to other realms?" I asked.
"They lead to Lady Shallot in the Tower of Tales." She coughed. "I can guide you on how to escape to the Seven Seas, but it will still be your responsibility to find the Tower of Tales."
"What is the Tower of Tales?" Amalie asked.
"Where every tale ever told is documented, and where every new tale is written." Cinder seemed annoyed by our ignorance.
"Tales as in fantasy?" I said.
"Tales as in story," Cinder answered. "Each life we live, each one of us is a story. If we consider other's stories fantasies, then who says our own isn't a fantasy too?"
Cinder seemed to talk in riddles while remaining totally uninterested in them. She also didn't look like one who should say these things. Frankly, I didn't understand most of what she said, so I focused on what I needed to know. "Can vampires reach the Tower of Tales?"
"I have no idea," she said. "But once you reach it, Lady Shallot should sew you a new realm from her ball of thread that weaves the worlds, and you can always ask her not to let certain evils pass through."
"Thread?" I asked reluctantly.
"Lady Shallot lives in a room atop the Tower of Tales," Cinder said. "She's lived there alone for centuries. Her only job is to create new worlds from the magic of the thread she weaves."
Amalie nodded, although I wanted to inquire more. "That sounds convenient," she said. "All Carmilla and her lover need is to cross the Seven Seas and find the Tower of Tales and then ask for a new kingdom to start a new life?"
"Finding the tower isn't an easy task, as it changes its coordinates at sea all the time to stay away from the Dark of the World," Cinder explained. "If you don't find it, you will be lost in the Seven Seas, and maybe exposed to H—" Cinder shrugged and put her blowpipe down for the first time.
"Him?" I asked, remembering my conversation with the devil.
"Whatever his name is, he lurks around the Seven Seas." Cinder glared at me, obviously curious about how I knew about Him. But she dared not ask. "He will push you so hard if you're lost at sea."
"Push you for what?" Amalie skipped asking who "Him" was, since it was apparent Cinder didn't want to talk about the subject.
"To sell him your soul." Cinder's eyes reddened briefly, a shade of warning orange. "But God help you not to cross his path."
"I understand," Amalie said, as she nudged me not to ask more. But how was I supposed to cross seas with Angel, not knowing what kind of evil lurked in them? "So how does Carmilla get to cross the Seven Seas?" Amalie asked.
"In your situation, no ship will take you." Cinder finally looked at me. "They're afraid of the vampires and their king. I have also heard about you and your lover," she said. "Don't go on thinking that the world isn't after you. I heard innocent people were promised a reward of seven years of free salt for catching you both."