Seventeen-year-old Alice Grimm, a descendant of the Brothers Grimm, is the only one in the whole world who can discover the whereabouts of fairy-tale characters who don't even know who they really are. She heads to Venice, where archaeologists find an 800-year-old skeleton of a witch discovered in the city, who in the past invented the art of glass blowing. The corpse is surrounded by seventeen glass slippers, meaning it could have belonged to the real Cinderella. With the help of Loki, the Dream Hunter, who is able to enter the dreams of immortals, the two trace the chain of events that lead to the shocking details of the birth of the Real Cinderella.