“But that’s…” Shew’s face tightened.
“Impossible, I know,” Axel said. “But it isn’t, really. J.G. talks about the mirror in his diary. The creator, in order to make sure the clue never died, needed to create an immortal girl who carried it among centuries. But then, he must have learned that immortal could be killed in their dreams, so he had to make the girl even more eternal and undying that immortals.”
“What would that be,” Fable said. “Nothing is more undying than immortals.”
“Of course there is,” Axel objected. “There is something more eternal and legendary than any immortal you have ever thought of.”
“Spit it out, Alex,” Fable said while Shew thought she’d already known the answer. “What is it?”
“A Phoenix,” Shew answered on Axel’s behalf.
“Exactly,” Axel nodded. “Someone who’ll rise again from the ashes if burned. That’s why the creator made the clue a Phoenix so whenever she dies, she rises from the ashes again, and thus the clue lives forever and never dies,” Axel now clapped continuously, congratulating himself. “J.G. mentions here that he suspected that every time the Phoenix died and woke up, she woke up someone new, stripped of her past life’s memories, only very few information lived on with her when she was reborn, but nothing that had to do with whom she was before.”
“Cerené?” Shew wondered. The Slave Maiden, the cinder girl whose every breath she gave was a breath taken from her life? No wonder she didn’t care. Deep inside, she must have felt she can live this over and over again. That’s why she knew so many things Shew didn’t know about. Not only because Charmwill and Bianca talked to her, but because Cerené lived for so long that some knowledge like making glass stuck to her memory.
“The real Cinderella is not that helpless maid who longs to meet the prince in the ball,” Axel said. “Her role in the world is as equal and important as the Chosen One. The sad part is in order for her to protect the world, she’d better not know who she is or she’d start searching for the clue herself. Who knows, maybe if she find it, she’d decided to turn to the dark side.”
“Cerené would never do that,” Shew defended her.
“You of all people should know what darkness can do to people,” Axel said, “Remember the eerie songs you said Cerené sang whenever the world burned around her?”
“Yes,” Shew said. “Strange songs about London, ashes, and burning things.”
“I’m not sure but it looks to me like these are songs about things that had burned all along history and Cerené had been there when it happened,” Axel suggested. “She must have lived around every burning incident in history. The London fire, 1666, I would guess. That’s why she was singing London Bridge is Falling Down, which is rumored to have been about the London burning event,” Axel started counting on his fingers. “Ashes, Ashes which is part of the ‘Ring Around the Rosies’ nursery rhyme. It is said that this rhyme describes the incidents of the Black Death plague that killed most of the world. The plagued people were burned alive so they wouldn’t spread the disease. Fire, again. Remember when she told you about Le Fenice, the famous Venetian opera? It’s been burned through history as well. My guess is she was one of the burned. Cerené must have even seen when Rome burned, and when—”
“Enough!” Shew said. “Each time you mention her dying I feel like choking. Why should suffer something like that?”
“It’s her destiny, I guess,” Axel shook his shoulders.
“Does that mean, she isn’t dead?” Shew asked Axel. “Does it mean that she will rise again and will not sleep for a hundred years in the Field of Dreams?”
“I honestly don’t know, Shew,” Axel said. “I have so many questions in my head. Like who are the members of Cerené’s stepfamily? Why is she related to every burning incidents in history? Who burned these places, and why was she always there?”
“Which should answer who repeatedly saved me from the Wall of Thorns and Candy House when it burned,” Shew said.
“That’s if whoever saved you was actually saving you,” Axel pointed out. “It could be someone who was saving Cerené because she is the Clue, not you.”
“So what now, Axel?” Shew said. “There are too many mysteries, and I need to solve them to get to the Lost Seven before my mother.”
“In order to do so, we need someone to help us get to…” Axel said.
“To Murano,” Shew interrupted, and Axel nodded with approval. “Now that Carmilla knows who Cerené is and where she is from, she will go after her, whether in a Dreamworld or real life.”