Every December the tree bloomed. It was rare for any tree to bloom in the middle of winter, but this was no ordinary oak. Every time a pair of soul mates met a bud would grow. When their souls were finally reunited, a flower would blossom—catkins for a male pair, small flowers for a female pair, and a pale pink and white flower inside a catkin for mixed-gender soul mates. Kris, who had always spent a week of December visiting her grandparents here, told me that by the end of the month the tree would have dozens of flowers.

Even though I should have gotten back to where my dad had ordered me to wait, I had to see the tree. There were a few small buds already there, and I wondered if one of them was for Kris. Since I wasn’t yet eighteen, my bud wouldn’t appear for at least a few weeks. That was, if my soul mate even existed, and if they were at Court as well.

A muffled voice, like a whisper in the wind, echoed, and I turned to see if someone had approached without me noticing. I was all alone. As I moved closer to the tree, the whispering grew louder. The breeze whooshed in my hair and as I strained to hear it again I ignored the strange lingering feeling I had. Swallowing the lump in my throat, I held my breath and reached out my hand to touch the rough surface of the trunk. My fingers were mere inches away when a hand grabbed my shoulder and pulled me back.

“What the—” I turned around, a murderous glare prepared for whoever was rude enough to grab me like that. “Mom?”

Maybe I was going crazy, but only a few hours earlier she had dramatically yelled at us to leave her behind, stating that she would rather come with her friends and would meet us here tomorrow—which meant she would miss my induction as an Awakened. Yet here she was, standing in front of me.

“Mom, what are you doing here? Weren’t you supposed to be arriving tomorrow with Kiara?”

“Her name is Tiana,” my mom grumbled. “But the question is, what are you doing here? This is not a tourist spot. You’re not here for a vacation.” Here it was, another lecture about to go down. “You can’t be here. This is the Court—you can’t just go wandering around like you own the place. Behave as you were raised. Do not embarrass your father and me,” she hissed as she dragged me away.

“I’m not trying to embarrass you. I just wanted to hear what the tree was saying.”

She came to an abrupt halt, and the look in her eyes was deadly. There was something there I’d never seen before, something that I recognized as fear, and it confused me. “Never say that again, Avery Zosime Montgomery.”