Page 91 of The Bone Season

‘Oh, no. Even birds and beasts have a dreamscape; all embodied creatures do. It serves as both sanctuary and strongroom – a locus amoenus, if you will.’

I had no idea what he meant, but I was still enthralled.

‘Now, voyants can see our dreamscapes at will, learn to retreat into their depths; we also see them in colour,’ Jaxon went on. ‘Amaurotics can only glimpse theirs in their dreams, and only dream in shades of grey.’

‘Amaurotics?’

‘The dullards, darling. The normals and naturals, beloved by Scion.’

‘If they both have dreamscapes, how do I distinguish one from the other?’

Jaxon smiled again. ‘She asks the right questions, Dr Nygård. Would you like to tell her?’

‘Our connection to the spirit world is called an aura,’ Nick said. ‘It manifests as a kind of light around a person, usually just one colour. That’s how you can tell a voyant from an amaurotic.’

‘I’ve never seen one,’ I said. ‘Neither of you have one.’

Nick took a sterile cloth from a packet, wiped his hands, and reached for his eyes. I watched as he peeled off a pair of contact lenses.

‘Can you see, Paige?’

His eyes were pale wintergreen. The right pupil was shaped like a keyhole.

‘Some of us have the spirit sight,’ Nick explained. ‘We can see auras – even spirits. Having this hole in my iris makes me half-sighted. I can blink away the æther when I want. Jaxon is full-sighted.’

Jaxon widened his blue eyes for me. He had the little holes in both.

‘You can’t turn it off,’ I said, hedging a guess.

‘Quite right.’

I nodded, reassured. ‘I’m still voyant, even though I don’t have those.’

‘Yes,’ Nick said. ‘You just can’t see auras.’

‘Unsightedness is somewhat rare, but not a disadvantage. Without the sight to help you, your sixth sense will be working harder,’ Jaxon said, clearly pleased. ‘Now, Nick is an oracle, while I am a binder. Concentrate, now, Paige – can you feel any difference between us?’

‘Jaxon,’ Nick said in despair. ‘This is too advanced. Even you can’t always distinguish between voyants.’

Jaxon tutted. ‘Killjoy.’

I finished my coffee. It tasted worse cold.

‘The woman in the poppy field,’ I said to Nick. ‘That was a spirit.’

Nick nodded. ‘A violent spirit called a poltergeist. It’s a class of breacher, which means it can affect the living world. That’s how it hurt you.’

‘Then she did this to me. She made me this way.’

‘No, Paige.’

‘The poltergeist may have woken your gift early. Nick tells me it happened when you were nine,’ Jaxon said. ‘Usually an aura takes longer to sharpen.’ He drew on his cigar. ‘But you were always one of us. You would have come into your own either way.’

I glanced between the two men again.

Nick mustered an encouraging smile. Jaxon looked at me as if I were a lost valuable he had just recovered.

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘What kind of … voyant do you think I am?’

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