Rooms? At a time when the Heraldic and Bardic Trainees were practically being stacked like cordwood, this young fellow had more than one room to himself? Mags blinked, but he followed the other two inside quietly. They went up four steps to a separate entrance from the rest of the Collegium and the areas for the sick and injured and stepped inside.

And Mags immediately felt like a fool. For the “rooms” were actually a greenhouse with panes of thick, wavy glass, each about the size of his hand and leaded together into a floor-to-ceiling window facing south and a glass roof, with pots and pots of plants everywhere they could catch the light, and two small rooms off it, one of which was clearly used for dealing with the plants. It was very warm and cozy in here, and Mags wondered if it was heated, as his room was, by a big oven built into the wall. . . .

“Fire’s below,” Bear explained, with a smile and a shrug. “Knew you’d ask, everyone does. Furnace’s below, heats the floor, then the hot air and smoke goes up through flues in that wall.” He pointed to the back wall shared by both small rooms. “There’s some herbs has got to be fresh to use, so we grow ’em here all year.”

“Except no one could get them to grow in winter until Bear came,” Lena put in, eyes dancing. “That’s what you never tell anyone, Bear!”

Bear just shrugged. “Someone used to, or these rooms wouldn’t be here,” he pointed out logically. “Stands to reason. Anyway, it isn’t a Gift or anything of the sort, I just am careful with ’em, make sure I know what they need, and make sure they get it. Easy. Anybody could do it. Only, I don’t have a Gift, you see, so I’ve got to have the knack for taking care of these little beauties, ’cause that’s how I Heal folks.”

He gestured at the back of the greenhouse room, where a rough wooden table had been set with three places; a basket of bread and a bubbling pot over a coal brazier waited. “Lena, you said you wanted to try this, so I asked Cook to help me make it up.” He grinned. “I think you’re gonna like it.”

“It,” when Mags peered curiously at the pot, was a softly bubbling concoction, much thicker than gravy, of a creamy yellow. Bear sat them all down around the pot, picked up one of the rolls, tore it in half, and dipped the end in. “Careful, it’s real hot,” Bear cautioned, blowing on the end, as Mags and Lena followed his example. Bear was not exaggerating, it was hot enough as he dipped his bread that he was certain a drop of it would probably raise a blister.