The wildflowers began blooming at midnight.
Not in the Alpha house — they had been blooming in and around the Alpha house for months, a continuous and unremarkable feature of living with the Ascendant. These wildflowers bloomed in Cedar Falls. In Stone Creek's river valley. Along the ley line path between Silver Fang and the Southern Coven's rebuilt northern outpost. In the fae grove outside the healing circle where Malachar had been walking — short distances, every day, the recovery patient and ongoing — and in the courtyard of the Nightshade Court three hundred miles south, where Kael felt the shift in the convergence frequency and was at his relay terminal before the braid had finished carrying the signal.
It was the sixth of September. Five and a half months since the May amplificati
