“Well, what are we going to do with you?” Healer Sanje asked rhetorically. At least Abi assumed the question was rhetorical, since she had no idea how to answer it.

They were in a green-tiled examination and treatment room in the part of Healers’ Collegium devoted to the sick and injured. Abi could not imagine how the Healers managed it, but somehow the atmosphere in here was welcoming and comforting, not cold and sterile, or ominous.

The Healer took Abi’s chin in her hand and tilted Abi’s face up to catch the light, looking deeply—and somewhat creepily—into Abi’s eyes. No one had ever looked so intently at Abi before, not even her parents, and she found herself repressing the urge to squirm and look away.

Healer Sanje was an extremely tall woman, as tall as most men and certainly much taller than her father. She was also quite thin, with an oddly angular face, and slow, graceful movements, as if she thought out each movement carefully and choreographed it before executing it. Sanje’s eyes were an unsettling silver, her hair, jet-black. In her green Healer’s robes she was an unforgettable character.

“Walk with me,” Sanje ordered, letting go of Abi’s chin, and making a tiny gesture to indicate Abi should walk alongside her. They left the examination room, moved down the hallway of the treatment and recovery wing of Healers’, and out into the herb garden. Sanje didn’t say a word the entire time, just glided along with her head tilted down slightly, as if she were meditating.

The many scents of the herb garden tickled and teased Abi’s nose. Some people found it dull because most of the plants did not have big, showy flowers. She never had and actually preferred it to the formal gardens. They paced slowly between the beds of herbs, tending in the direction of Companion’s Field but taking little detours as Sanje paused to examine this plant or that.

“Do you know what synesthesia is?” she asked, finally, when Abi was already a bit unnerved by the silence.

“No,” Abi replied.

“It’s a rare condition. I personally would not consider it a defect, but rather an enhancement of the senses. Some people experience two senses at once with a single stimulus, such as hearing a particular note and at the same time, seeing a particular color.” She hummed a note, and Abi was completely unsurprised to discover Sanje had a very good voice. “A person with synesthesia would hear that note, and see, say, the color blue at the same time. Another note, and instead of blue he would see yellow. More often, a person will see or experience particular letters or numbers as distinct colors. If you asked them how they saw the letter ‘A’ they might tell you it was red.”