Cassandra's evolved ability is Projective Retrocognition. Simply put, she is able to discern the past and past events by either being physically present where an event occurred or handling an object that was present. This allows her to subconsciously read the psychic echoes present and, with effort, create vivid illusions that can be experienced by those in her near vicinity.
Projection: If Cassandra was in a museum or antique shop and wanted to use her ability and picked up an opium pipe, after a few moments everyone might find themselves seemingly transported back to the 1800s in an opium den for the duration of the vision, experiencing the same sights, sounds, scents, smells that someone who was there would have in full color and dimension, almost like an overlay of the past being played over the present day. This is more of a hit-and-miss application of her power, and can last for up to a minute with concentration and can affect anyone within a 10x10 space or a standard room.
Focused Projection: The more nuanced use of Cassandra's ability is focusing and searching for a particular event that occured. If Cassandra was at a crime scene or picked up the murder weapon, once she was attuned to the object or place and found the right spot, she could replay the room at the time of the murder. Everyone present would see the perpetrator pick up the gun and shoot the victim as though they were standing there as helpless bystanders, able to move around inside the vision three dimensionally. This is a more time consuming use of her ability, and there are many things that affect the accuracy and time invested to get the necessary projection. One factor is how much time has passed since an event took place - sooner is easier. Getting a focused projection of how a knight in the 14th century used a sword to slaughter peasants might take days of concentration, while finding out how someone escaped from a room a half hour ago would probably be a lot easier. This ability also depends on how familiar a situation is to Cassandra and how many people moved through the area in the intervening time. A crowded street would have a lot more psychic clutter to weed through than an apartment that had a single resident. The more emotionally charged an item or location is, the further she can go back. A sword that was used to murder 500 people would allow her to go further back than a coffee cup.
Retrocognitive Viewpoint: One of the more interesting aspects of Cassandra's ability is what she calls 'the Blade Runner trick.' Based on an old movie from before the war, the Blade Runner trick allows her to do a lot of the investigative studying of scenes by shifting viewpoints inside the echo and following particular people inside the echo. This effectively allows her to 'look' from the perspective of different people in the scene and focus on particular points. If something interesting is found, she can shift perspectives to that individual echo and continue along that trail, until another is found, and so on, much like a bloodhound following clues. The total amount of 'hops' she can make is anywhere from three to four before it gets too complicated and straining to go further than that. This trick also takes quite a bit of effort and an escort, since this actually necessitates her being blindfolded.
Memory Editing: Cassandra has practiced the ability to pluck the memories from her own subconcious, like Caspar, and store them in objects in order to be able to forget some of the things she's seen. A necessary thing to allow her to sleep at night. Those objects, generally unique beads, are kept in a locked chest in her house with a card catalog informing of what, basically, the memory is - something she offhandedly refers to as 'Pandora's Box.' This is something she's kept to herself.
Limitations, Enhancements, and Drawbacks: Cassandra's ability is not a classical psychic one. She can't read minds or predict what will happen on a coin flip - she can only see what has already happened using her ability. Who's that killer? She doesn't know - it's just some person or a scene that she can project at this point, unless they helpfully drop their wallet or say their name out loud. People entering the room after the vision starts takes a good ten to fifteen seconds to 'tune in,' which might be disorienting when people and events start popping into view. Cassandra also isn't consciously able to tap into alternate timelines, dimensions, or worlds unless there is somehow an object that came from there to here or some broadcast she somehow happens to pick up.
One of the biggest limits to Cassandra's ability is the requirement that she be in the location an event happened or be able to physically handle an object with bare skin to get the appropriate resonance, and any use of the abilities other than Projection requires the use of some kind of blindfold to cover her eyes. She generally keeps a length of lined, woven silk in her pocket to facilitate this. This blindfold is required to a) cut off her sense of sight, making it easier to focus, b) keep people from freaking out when they see her pupils expand enough to make her eyes turn black, and c) soak up the ink-black tears that are an unfortunate result of her using her ability and keep them from ruining her outfit. While projecting, Cassandra is essentially blind to the outside world, her sense of sight completely overwritten by the images she's producing. Chairs and tables that have moved since the image or people who don't are major hazards to a projecting Cassie.
Intoxication with alcohol or narcotics increases the potency of Cassandra's ability in direct proportion to her level of intoxication. She sometimes takes a swig from a flask before 'going to work' to turn up the volume on her ability a little, and actually helps since a relaxed mind is a more receptive one. Heavy intoxication increases the potential of unwanted events overlapping and appearing outside of the events that she's looking for. Boosting of her ability using another evolved person's ability provides better control and focus, with less chance of the bad results and without the hangover in the morning.
There's sometimes a chance that Cassandra's projection is too powerful, potentially getting her 'lost' or 'stuck' for a little while, unable to escape. A person moving from the room just gets shuffled into the next room since it's beyond the range of her projection. This is particularly dangerous for Cassandra, as the line between what is present and what is past starts to blur and could potentially lead to injury as she tries to frantically escape from something she's projecting, centered on her, that is potentially tramuatizing, not real, or from something else entirely. This is basically impossible, since her power will keep going until she passes out.
