The Request Room is waiting, as it always is -- black walls, ceiling, and floor, spotlights, small golden table. On the table is a stack of thick cream-colored cards made of heavy cotton rag paper, a small stand holding a dip pen and black ink (in a red, apple-shaped inkwell), a silver bowl, and one larger placard, covered with elegant script and ( Read more... )

The Request Room is waiting, as it always is -- black walls, ceiling, and floor, spotlights, small golden table. On the table is a stack of thick cream-colored cards made of heavy cotton rag paper, a small stand holding a dip pen and black ink (in a red, apple-shaped inkwell), a silver bowl, and one larger placard, covered with elegant script and ( Read more... )

A new room has appeared -- or maybe it was there all along, and you never noticed it.

The door, on the tenth floor, is different from most of the other doors in the mansion: it's narrower, and it has delicate molding, cut in the shape of bamboo, making five rectangular panels from the top to the bottom. A small golden plaque says, Petitions. The ( Read more... )

The young man, thin and pale with a wild mop of dark hair, walks down the empty corridor. Sure that no one else is in sight, he adjusts his stoop until he is certain that it mirrors the one he's observed in some of his guests ( Read more... )