The Crossroads

"Starts as a mystery. Know that before anything else."

At the crossroads of Aldenmere, the ancient bull that sealed the valley for generations is found beheaded. Beside its body lies eighteen-year-old Lark, her chest opened, her heart taken.

Sixty years later, a scribe on his way to the castle libraries hears the story of what came to pass that day and in the months that followed. Some of it is true.

Rook has nothing but a bloodstained handkerchief torn from her dead twin sister's hand, and the cold certainty that it is the key to finding her killer. Her hunt draws her through a kingdom on the edge of war, toward the Witch's Wood, where girls have been vanishing and something ancient and patient has been waiting for exactly this kind of grief to come walking through the trees.

In the castle to the north, Queen Sera has survived thirty-eight years of a vicious king by learning one thing: the ones who survive don't flinch. She has stayed—and endured—for her son. But when he walks into the Witch's Wood calling for a witch and comes back wrong, everything she has survived to protect is suddenly beyond her reach.

The witch is walking. The king is sharpening something. And Rook and Sera may be all that stands between Aldenmere and what is coming.

"Starts as a mystery. Know that before anything else."

At the crossroads of Aldenmere, the ancient bull that sealed the valley for generations is found beheaded. Beside its body lies eighteen-year-old Lark, her chest opened, her heart taken.

Sixty years later, a scribe on his way to the castle libraries hears the story of what came to pass that day and in the months that followed. Some of it is true.

Rook has nothing but a bloodstained handkerchief torn from her dead twin sister's hand, and the cold certainty that it is the key to finding her killer. Her hunt draws her through a kingdom on the edge of war, toward the Witch's Wood, where girls have been vanishing and something ancient and patient has been waiting for exactly this kind of grief to come walking through the trees.

In the castle to the north, Queen Sera has survived thirty-eight years of a vicious king by learning one thing: the ones who survive don't flinch. She has stayed—and endured—for her son. But when he walks into the Witch's Wood calling for a witch and comes back wrong, everything she has survived to protect is suddenly beyond her reach.

The witch is walking. The king is sharpening something. And Rook and Sera may be all that stands between Aldenmere and what is coming.

Cassie Reeves grew up in California, where she learned early that the best stories live in the space between what is and what should be. She studied at San Francisco State University and spent years in San Francisco before trading the fog for the quieter rhythms of Petaluma, where she now lives with her husband and two children.

She writes fantasy: the kind with shadows in it, where magic and mystery don't always lead somewhere safe. She has always believed that the truest things are sometimes easier to say sideways.

The Crossroads, releasing 'in real life' Winter 2026, is her debut fantasy novel and the first book in the Histories of Aldenmere series. Look for The Bloodline (2027), The Witch's Wood (2028), and The Archives (2029).

Readers interested in her origin story: Cassie: A Novel

Get a taste here.
Full book coming Winter 2026.