“I should want to, but my gut instinct tells me not to,” Cerené said. “I don’t know why I get that feeling.”

“I see,” Shew nodded, making sure to ask her questions slowly, watching Cerené’s temper. She wasn’t going to ask her again how it was possible to know her mother while she was too young to remember her. “Can you tell me about…?”

“Bianca?” Cerené smiled unexpectedly. “She taught me how to become a glassblower.”

“She was a glassblower herself?”

“The best, she’s my mentor,” Cerené laced her fingers together. “She could create over a hundred glass artifacts in one day. She had the rarest talents and breathing methods. She knew every stone, every ingredient and mix. She knew of metals that no one had ever heard of. I once saw her turn iron into glass.”

“Wow,” Shew said. “She must have been extremely respected and appreciated.”

Cerené’s lips twitched again. She curled her fingers together, “Not really,” she said. “You see, my mother originally lived in Venice, a famous city for its lagoons and glassblowing among other things. But as much as glassblowing was a wonderful art, it was also a threat to the locals.”

“A threat?”

“Like I showed you, it needs a lot of fire. Houses in Venice were made of wood. Once in a while the glassblowers lit a house on fire, accidentally.”

“So the locals considered a glassblower a danger to their houses?”

“Not just that,” Cerené seemed reluctant. “Venetians thought of fire as a bad thing and that it came from the deepest pits of hell. Burning someone’s house was a serious sin because fire was loathed. It is true that they had plenty of water to extinguish the fire since the city floated on it, but in contrast, it had a significant meaning to the Venetians. God had created them a nation of water. Fire was their enemy. They feared it and all kinds of superstitions were attached to it.”

 “I see,” Shew said. “So your mother’s art wasn’t appreciated.”

“It’s ironic because glass was one of Venice’s most profitable incomes—very few understood that fire was an essential part of making it. Visitors came from all over the world to see and buy our glass,” Cerené explained.

“I assume the Venetian authorities prohibited anyone from exposing the secrets of making that kind of beautiful glass art,” Shew said.

“Yes, that’s true. But how do you know?”

“Because there is always big talk about glass in the Schloss,” Shew said. “My mother spent a lot of money to import glass from all over the world. It’s very expensive and rarely as good as Venetian art, which is almost impossible to acquire. In addition, glass in general is very precious in Sorrow. You must know that.”

“I know,” Cerené nodded in a way that led Shew to think she knew much more than just that.

“So how did your mother cope with the conflict of people in Venice hating and loving glassblowers at the same time?” Shew asked.

“At some point, priests accused glassblowers of communing with the dark side. They said that only an evil art would need that amount of fire to be created,” Cerené said. “They believed that the fire that lit Hell helped in creating fabulous art. So, to some extremists, glass was the art of the devil.”

“That’s absurd.”

“This whole life is absurd,” Cerené sighed. “They were concerned that the production of glass in Venice had increased immensely, especially my mother’s and some of her friends.”

“You just said your mother could create more than a hundred glass artifacts per day,” Shew said.

“And it didn’t cross your mind why?” Cerené said. “As amazing as her talent was, she couldn’t produce that amount of fire needed in a single day. It was impossible.”

“How did she do it then?”

“Well, the Venetians extremists explanation was that she had access to a volcano that fed Hell itself,” Cerené said.

“Let’s skip the ignorant beliefs,” Shew said. “I want to know how your mother really did it.”

It took Cerené a moment to permit the words to come out of her throat, “My mother wasn’t just any glassblower. She was a…”

Shew held her breath. She suddenly thought she knew the answer.

“A Phoenix,” Cerené said, her eyes darted away from Shew’s as if it was a sin.

Shew exhaled. She knew this was going to be the answer. The same way she and her mother were vampires in different ways, Cerené and her mother were Phoenixes in their own individual ways. She still needed to know what a Phoenix did exactly.

“A phoenix is originally a bird that rises from the ashes after it burns,” Shew said. “I don’t quite understand what your mother was.”

“A Firebringer, some call her a Firemage,” Cerené said.

“I don’t follow.”

“Well, the right description of a Phoenix, especially when you’re a glassblower, is artists with the breathing talent to make glass, but few of them also have a certain power.”

“Which is?”

“They could create fire at will,” Cerené said.

19

Pandora’s Box

“Bianca could create fire at will?” Shew asked. “That’s why she could produce so much glass, I guess.”

“It’s a gift from the Creators,” Cerené said.

“The same Creators who’d shaped Italy after a shoe?”

Cerené nodded, “It’s a very rare gift among glassblowers. I heard only seven women in the world had this power among the ages. Three of them were in Venice. My mother was one of them, and I don’t know anything about the other two.”

It was on the tip of Shew’s tongue; asking Cerené if she had any idea if her mother had burned the Wall of Thorns and Candy House. She was just grateful Cerené opened up to her without a temper, and she wouldn’t risk changing that at the moment.

 “Unfortunately, the story doesn’t stop here,” Cerené said. “To the extremists, who influenced the church, creating fire was considered an act of witchcraft. Venice was very skeptical—and secretive—about the art of making glass, and a rumor began to spread. It warned of witches who had the ability to create fire from hell, and were soon going to burn the city. The locals believed it, and decided to burn the witches.”

“But why would they? Nothing burned but houses. Why would they foretell the burning of Venice?”

“Teatro Le Fenice, Venice’s most famous opera house, burned the day after,” Cerené said.

“Le Fenice? I haven’t heard about it.”

“It’s very famous. Check out the history books. The Venetian Carnival took place all around it later,” Cerené said.

“I assume the city went rogue,” Shew said.

“The hunt for the witching glassblowers began, and all glassblowers in Venice suffered a great deal of humiliation, and were burned at the stake for years. I’m sure you’ve heard about falsely accused witches being burned at the stake.”

“Ignorance and stupidity, the true apocalypses of the world,” Shew commented. She had heard all about the burning of witches in Lohr where her father was originally from.

“Eventually, the governors of Venice decided to solve the matter,” Cerené said, sounding bored. Although she was bursting with knowledge, it meant the least to her. Unlike Shew, all Cerené wanted was to make Art.

 “They decided to catch all glassblowers and send them to the Island of Murano. It was the best thing to do to stop the killing and save the secretive art from spreading all over the world.”

“And that’s how you came to be born in Murano,” Shew said.

“My mother was pregnant when she was banned to Murano,” Cerené said. “She told me someone advised her to name me Cinder before she was deported.”

“Why Cinder?”

“My mother’s life could have been summed up with the word ‘cinder’,” Cerené said. “She was always covered in ashes from the cinders and the fire she created—or the things she accidentally burned. My mother had even decided to call me Cinderella to make it sound more girlish.”

“Then why is your name Cerené?” Shew asked, knowing the answer already.