“Voyants don’t dream, my dear girl. Not in the same way that amaurotics do. That idle pleasure is for them alone. But the color of a clairvoyant dreamscape shines through his or her corporeal form, creating an aura. People of the same voyant type tend to have very similar auras. You’ll learn to group them.”

“Can I see auras?”

They exchanged glances. Nick reached up and peeled two filmy lenses from his eyes. Chills ran down my back.

“Look at my eyes, Paige.”

He didn’t need to tell me twice. I remembered those eyes as clearly as if it had been yesterday. That exquisite gray-green, those delicate lines radiating through the iris. What I hadn’t noticed was the small, keyhole-shaped defect in his right pupil.

“Some voyants have a kind of third eye.” He sat back. “They can see auras; they can also see drifters. You can be half-sighted, like me—with just one coloboma—or full-sighted, like Jax.”

Jaxon pulled his eyelids wide open for me. He had the defect in both eyes.

“I don’t have that,” I said. “So I’m clairvoyant, but I don’t have a third eye?”

“Unsightedness is quite common in the higher orders. Your gift doesn’t require you to see spirits.” Jaxon gave me a pleased look. “You can feel auras and drifters, but you don’t perceive them visually.”

“It’s not really a disadvantage.” Nick patted my hand. “Your sixth sense will be much more attuned without the visual aid.”

Though the restaurant was warm, the cold was spreading all over my body. I looked between the two men, their different faces. “What kind of clairvoyant am I?”

“That’s what we want to find out. Over the years I’ve classified seven orders of clairvoyance. I believe you, my dear girl, are of the very highest order, making you one of the rarest clairvoyants in the modern world. If I am proved correct”—he pulled a folder out of his expensive leather satchel—“I’d like you to sign a job contract.” His eyes rested on mine. “I could write an infinite variety of numbers on this check, Paige. What will it take me to keep you?”

My heart thumped at my ribs. “A drink, for starters.”

Jaxon sat back.

“Nick,” he said, “get the young lady some mecks. She’s a keeper.”

14 The Sun Rising

14

The Sun Rising

For the next few nights, Warden and I did not speak; nor did we train. Every night I would leave as soon as the bell rang, not looking at him as I passed. He would watch, but he would never stop me. I almost wished he would, just so I could let the anger out.