ABOUT ME 

 

My name is Sandra Wagner.

Yes, the short version of Cassandra.

What a coincidence.

Actually, I have three names.

No, I'm not telling.

Sandra is just perfect.

 

I also write.

And I create all the illustrations

you see here.

Which is somewhat surprising,

because I was spectacularly bad

at art at school.

So bad, in fact, that I had to choose

music instead.

I played the piano for a couple of

years.

 

Ballet didn't go particularly well either.

I took fencing classes.

Make of that what you will.

I did mention the name thing, didn't I?

In case you're wondering how much

Cassandra there is in me.

 

Writing, however, was always my thing.

Journals. Stories.

Endless fragments of things.

And somewhere, I am fairly certain,

there are still about 150 pages

of an unfinished fantasy novel.

Exhausting. And mostly 150 very

boring pages.

I love short stories.

 

The ones we read.

The ones we tell each other.

And perhaps most of all,

the ones that make us look at

something we thought we knew

and see it differently.

So I started writing them.

And it turned out that somehow,

everything was connected.

 

The Cycle stories came first.

Beginning with Becoming.

And yes.

They are heavy.

I know that.

Some of them wrench your gut.

Mine too.

 

But there is something in them I love.

Raw emotion, perhaps - dressed in

myth and lyrics and,

occasionally, poetry.

 

I normally don't write poetry.

Unless I am heartbroken

and have had a couple of

glasses of wine.

Those poems are generally

not very good when I read them

again in the morning.

Except the two in Antevasin.

Well.

Maybe not good.

Acceptable.

They took me forever to write, by the

way.

 

But those heavy stories eventually

brought me to the Keeper.

I needed someone - or something -

to guide the reader through the

shadow valleys.

And, frankly, to keep an eye on

Cassandra.

She is quite a handful.

 

Writing her is wonderful.

Writing him is a delight.

I love both characters very much.

Sometimes I even hear

the Keeper commenting

on my real life.

Rarely.

But it happens.

He is usually unhelpfully observant.

 

So creating and building this world

has become a wonderful

contrast to my other life.

I know offices and technology very well.

Let's leave it at that.

 

Here, I get gods and gardens.

Crossroads and ravens.

Champagne and black flowers.

Fate with a sense of humour.

People who may or may not

be what they seem.

 

At some point, I thought Cassandra

deserved a real voice.

Well, actually, I thought I was rather

bad at writing dialogue.

So naturally, I decided to write a play.

It was a challenge, I have to admit.

And it is not Shakespeare.

I adore Shakespeare, by the way.

 

But something happened while I was

writing it.

Cassandra became more alive.

Then there was a pause.

Until more stories started appearing.

Different stories.

More contemporary. Sometimes lighter.

Sometimes rather strange.

The problem was, I had no idea where

to put them.

 

I needed some kind of system.

That became the Encounters.

A place where Cassandra could meet

all sorts of forces without everything

having to belong to The Cycle.

Apparently, once I had given them

somewhere to go, they kept coming.

That's more or less how this whole

world unfolded.

Not according to a grand plan.

One story creating the need for the

next thing.

 

And Cassandra, wandering

through all of it.

I hope you grow fond

of these characters too.

I hope you walk with them

through the stories.

 

Some will take you into darker places.

Others are considerably more fun.

And some things that look insignificant

may turn out to matter quite a lot.

 

Because there is one other thing

you should probably know about me.

I love planting hints.

A sentence here.

A detail there.

Something that seems perfectly

innocent at the time.

Plot twists are among my favourite

things.

So if you think you've spotted

something...

You might have.