“The æther is the ‘source’ of which Scion occasionally deems to speak,” he said. “The realm of the restless dead. The source which the Bloody King supposedly accessed during a séance, causing him to commit five ghastly murders and bring an epidemic of clairvoyance upon the world. All utter tosh, of course. The æther is simply the spiritual plane, and clairvoyants are those with the ability to access it. There was no epidemic. We have always been there. Some of us are good; others are evil, if there is any such thing as evil—but whatever we are, we are not a disease.”

“So Scion lied.”

“Yes. Harden yourself to the idea.” Jaxon lit a cigar. “Edward might well have been Jack the Ripper, but I highly doubt he was clairvoyant at all. Far too clumsy.”

“We have no idea why they pinned it all on clairvoyance,” Nick said. “It’s a mystery only the Archon understands.”

“How does it work?” My skin was prickling and hot. I could be unnatural. I could be one of them.

“Not all spirits go peacefully into the heart of the æther, where we think some kind of final death is found,” Jaxon said. He was relishing this, I could tell. “Instead they linger, roving between the corporeal and spiritual planes. When they’re in this state, we call them drifters. They still have personality, and most can be contacted. They only have a certain degree of freedom, and are usually happy to assist voyants.”

“You’re talking about real, dead people,” I said. “You can just pull their strings, and they’ll dance?”

“Correct.”

“Why would any of them want that?”

“Because it means they can stay with their loved ones.” He sniffed, like he didn’t understand the concept. “Or with people they’d like to haunt. They sacrifice free will in exchange for a kind of immortality.”

I took a mouthful of salad and chewed. It was like chewing a wad of wet cotton.

“Of course, they don’t start off as spirits.” Jaxon tapped the back of my hand. “You have a flesh body. You can walk on the corporeal plane. But you also have a private connection to the æther. We call it the dreamscape. The scenery of the human mind.”

“Wait, wait. You keep saying ‘we,’” I said. “Who are we, exactly? Clairvoyants?”

“Yes. It’s a very vibrant community.” Nick gave me a warm smile. “But a very secret one.”

“You can identify voyants by their aura. That’s how Nick recognized you,” Jaxon said. My growing interest seemed to animate him. “Everyone has a dreamscape, you see. An illusion of safety, a kind of locus amoenus. You understand.” I wasn’t sure I did. “Voyants have colored dreamscapes. The rest have black-and-white ones. They see their dreamscapes when they dream. Amaurotics, consequently, dream in monochrome. Voyants, conversely—”

“––dream in color?”