“You don’t talk like him,” I said, nodding to Lucky.
“Turn on dat coonass mojo, I can, if I need to,” she said, then dropped the accent. “But I went away to college and learned to speak in a socially correct way, so far as the rest of the country is concerned. Are we gonna parley or not? Sundown isn’t that far away, and I’m busy.”
I told her everything I knew, had figured out, guessed at, and deduced. It didn’t take long. “What we need here,” I said in conclusion, “is a way to stop the war, repair a marriage, and open lines of communication between the vamps and the witches. And then get you both tied in with the regional councils so dumb stuff like this doesn’t happen again.”
“I’m not giving the corona back to the suckheads,” Solene said. “It isn’t theirs.”
“It came from them,” I said, going for reasonable. “Shauna stole it.”
“This time. The corona is witch magic, old, and half-forgotten. Therefore, originally, it was witches who made it.”
“That’s one possibility. Another is that witch magic itself came from someone or somewhere else and that someone else made it and technically owns it. Or that the magic feels like witch magic but isn’t. Maybe humans made it and witches added the magic later, under contract to a third party. Which would make it belong to that third party. Or maybe it’s like a magic teapot, a spirit captured inside and needing to be set free.”
“Like a genie? Rub my lamp and you get three wishes?” She made a sound of disgust. “Tell you what. That third party shows up, proves it belongs to them, and I’ll give it to them.”
“What kind of proof of ownership is necessary?” I asked “How about if they can unlock the thing’s magic and use it? Would that do?”
Solene narrowed her eyes at me. It was clear that she hadn’t planned on my accepting her suggestion or having a rejoinder to it. I put on my best innocent expression. I’d never been very good at fake innocence, and I didn’t think Solene believed this face, but I kept it in place, hoping for the best. “All I’d need is to see it, take a pic of it with my cell, and we can start searching out its . . . provenance—isn’t that the word?—to get it back to its legal owner, its creator, or at least the person who should be responsible for it.”
“If it belongs to Satan, one of his emissaries, a demon, a Watcher, or any of the dark pantheon, the witches will keep it.”
“As long as the phrase dark pantheon is not construed to include Mithrans or vampires, I’ll agree to that. If the vamps actually own it, it goes to Leo Pellissier.”
“If you can provide appropriate provenance that it belongs to the suckheads, I’ll turn it over to them. I’ll stipulate that I’ll ‘turn it over to the rightful owners.’”
That was too easy. I had a feeling that Solene knew the wreath had never really belonged to the vamps, and that maybe she had knowledge and proof that they had stolen it themselves. But, remembering the corona in the street, hazed by energies and the rain, I had another thought about the crown, one dealing with some of the squiggly lines on the base, the ones shaped like lightning bolts.
Before I could act on it, Solene said, “One other caveat. The suckheads never were able to crack the magics. If we crack the wreath’s magics tonight, all bets are off. If we can use it, it’s ours.” She looked too self-satisfied, as if she knew she’d crack the magics and she had just been playing with me up until now. But realistically, if they cracked the spell on the thing and could use the energies contained in it, there was no way I’d get it back. They’d turn us into fried toads if we tried to take it away.
I scowled but said, “Agreed. When can I see it and take pictures of it?”
“Now. Auguste and Beno?t have been guarding it in the truck.” Solene grinned at what she saw on my face. “I’m not dumb enough to leave it anywhere unprotected. The suckheads might be bound by daylight and night, but their blood-slaves and -servants aren’t.”