“So now you’re a trained aura-reader?”

“No,” she said. “But I know what I see in your rainbow. I’ve told you that rainbows are a reflection of the primary ultralight colors in a person’s aura.”

“Are you saying that you can see something in my aura that none of the experts saw? Thanks, but no thanks. I can’t afford to waste time with that power-of-positive-thinking crap.”

“That’s the spirit,” she shot back. “Think negative. That way you’re never disappointed.”

The sharpness of her tone caught him by surprise. She was usually so cheerful, so sunny and warmhearted. Like a dust bunny, he thought. But dust bunnies had teeth. He thought about that night fifteen years ago when Charlotte had tried to fight off a bigger, stronger attacker with only a flashlight. Underneath all that sweetness and light, Charlotte was a fighter.

“I’m just trying to be realistic,” he growled, feeling defensive now.

“What happens when you push your talent to the upper limits?”

“I was told not to risk it.”

“Why?”

“The theory is that the more I use my talent, the harder I push it, the faster it will deteriorate,” he said.

“I don’t understand. Everyone knows that if a strong talent runs in the red zone for a prolonged period, he or she can certainly exhaust his or her senses temporarily. But it takes only a couple of hours to recover completely.”

“The folks at the clinic warned me that I probably wouldn’t recover from a serious burn,” he said quietly.

“But knowing you, you have experimented a bit, right?”

She knew him too well, he thought. How had that happened? He had never let anyone get close. But somehow she was right next to him, physically and psychically. She had somehow slipped through the invisible barricades he had spent a lifetime building and shoring up.

“I had to see for myself,” he admitted.

“And?”

“Let’s just say that I learned my lesson. I saw my future and there’s nothing good waiting there. All I can do is try to buy as much time as possible.”

“What, exactly, did you experience when you rezzed your talent to the max after the explosion?”

They were inside the trees again. The silver meadow disappeared behind them. The thick darkness dropped like a shroud. He jacked his talent up just enough to guide her through the trees and summoned the scenes of his recent nightmares.

“A storm of energy,” he said. “It was like looking at an advancing hurricane or a tornado.”

She touched the mirror pendant. “That’s not what I saw reflected in your rainbow earlier tonight when you took me into the night canyon.”

“I was only partially jacked then.”

“It was enough for me to see your true colors. I saw them the other night when you kissed me and I saw them again tonight when you made love to me.”

He studied the tiny mirrored pendant at her throat. Moonlight glinted on it. He was uncomfortable with the knowledge that Charlotte seemed to be able to dig out his secrets. But he knew a few things about her, too. One of the things he knew was that she would not lie to him.

“What, exactly, did you see?” he asked.

“A lot of powerful ultralight. I can’t put a name to all of the various primary colors because I’ve never seen them before, but I can tell that they come from the far end of the spectrum and that the frequencies of the radiation are rock steady. There was no sign of instability.”

“What does that mean for me?”

“Well, for one thing, it means that you’ve got some serious talent you don’t seem to be aware of,” she said.

“Whatever is out there in that storm that I can see when I go hot is not my old talent. I don’t recognize it, Charlotte. The energy looks chaotic to me. That is never a good sign when you’re talking about human psi. You know that as well as I do. Chaos on the spectrum is one of the surefire indicators that a person is either going psiblind or mad.”

“It’s not chaos. I told you the bands of light in the rainbow are strong and stable.”

“Then why don’t I recognize the energy?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “You’re going to have to find out for yourself.”

“How the hell do I do that?”

“The same way you did when you first came into your talent back in your teens,” she said patiently. “The way I did it. The way Devin will eventually figure out his developing psychic nature. You work with it and you experiment until you understand how to focus and control it.”

He went cold. “Damn it to hell. Are you telling me that I’m coming into a new talent?”

She smiled. “Relax, you’re not becoming a Cerberus. You won’t go rogue.”

Cerberus was Arcane slang for those who developed more than one kind of talent. Such individuals were so rare as to be the stuff of dark myth and legend. True multitalents generally died in their teens or early twenties. The problem, according to the Society’s experts, was that the human mind could not handle the high levels of stimulation and acute sensory perception that accompanied multiple talents. Cerberus talents invariably went insane and self-destructed. Most of the handful of recorded cases took their own lives early but a few had survived long enough to become murderous para-psychopaths.

When it came to dealing with Cerberus talents, Arcane policy was simple and straightforward. Get rid of them. The corollary to that policy was by whatever means necessary. He happened to know from his time working for the Office that the FBPI and the Guilds had similar policies.

“You’re sure?” he said.

“Oh, yes.”

“Because I have to tell you that having Arcane, the Office, and the Guilds coming after me is all I’d need to make my life full, rich, and complete.”

“Well, you did indicate that you were a trifle bored with being chief of police here on Rainshadow.”

“I’m not joking,” he said. “How can you be certain that I’m not developing a second talent? No offense, but you sell antiques for a living. You’re not a para-shrink or even an aura-reader.”

“I know.” Charlotte’s voice went flat. She folded her arms around herself and started walking again, very quickly. “You’re right. You probably shouldn’t be taking advice from a low-rent talent like a rainbow-reader.”

He moved then, taking two long strides to catch up with her. He wrapped his fingers around her arm. “I didn’t mean that I don’t trust you.”

“I know. It’s my talent you don’t trust. Believe me, I understand.”

Coolly, she tried to pull free of his grasp. He wanted to hold on to her but he knew she would fight him. He let her go and clenched his hand around the barrel of the flashlight.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “But I’ve spent the past three months dealing with the fallout of whatever that gas did to me. I was told that my talent and my life would never be the same.”

“Well, for what it’s worth, I think the experts who told you that were right. I doubt if your talent or your life will ever return to whatever was normal for you before you were hit with the gas.”

He frowned, hardly daring to allow himself even the slimmest ray of hope. “You really don’t think I’m going to go psiblind?”

“No.” She hesitated. “But I think there is definitely the possibility of another, equally bad outcome.”

“What could be worse?”

“Living with a lot of powerful energy that you don’t know how to focus or control. That kind of situation truly will drive you mad.”

He took a deep breath. “You think that I should push my talent. Start working with the dark energy that I see at the end of my spectrum.”

“There’s an ancient Arcane saying that applies here. Learn to control your talent or it will control you.”

“I DON’T BELIEVE IT.” DEVIN CAME TO A HALT IN THE trees and looked down the steep granite cliff at the rocky beach below. A small boat powered by an outboard engine had been drawn ashore. “Some jerks found Hidden Beach.”