Too Curvy For The Crown
Then we turned into a wide gallery, and I stopped walking.
The corridor ahead was full of light and noise. Staff on ladders were hanging garlands of white flowers along the walls, maids hurried past with armloads of silk, and two men carried a rack of gowns wrapped in paper, one after another after another, more gowns than I had ever seen in my life. The whole palace smelled of roses.
"Is this a festival?" I asked. "What are they preparing for?"
Merris hesitated, and her kind face folded into an expression I recognized, because I had worn it myself every time I had to hand someone bad news.