Excerpt: The Queen of Silverlake

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Felicitations and Most Noble Greetings, Madam De la Rosa.

We write to you today on a matter of significant urgency--to put it bluntly, an attack upon Our Royal Personage by foul assassins whose identities and motives are not yet clear to us. What shines with perfect clarity, however, is the most inscrutable anger towards Our Person and the Land we represent. As a respected professional with knowledge of such worlds of crime and intrigue that far surpasses Our own experience, We request your assistance in maintaining the safety of the Crown and the satisfactory and discrete conclusion to this threat.

We will expect your attendance at noon on Thursday next at the establishment noted below. As has been mentioned, by involving a Head of State in their foul plotting, these miscreants have raised a matter of international diplomacy, and there is a risk of unfortunate global consequences should this information be exposed to the press or neighboring law enforcement. We trust that you will prove our trust in your discretion and skill well founded.

The matter is urgent, and--though they may never know it--your people need you.

Signed this First of November, Two Thousand and Eight, in the Province of Silverlake by Her Most Gracious Majesty, The Queen of California.
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I blinked at my agent. "Is this a joke?"

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[last line]

I managed to look up at Sermon and smile a real smile.
In my own little corner of reality, for that moment, I was content.

The End