be other noises too. Can we move somewhere else?”
Beau nodded. “Let’s go back to my office.”
We trooped back into the house, but there was a commotion from the other end of the grand entrance. Tallulah Finch had arrived and was arguing with Milburn.
When she saw us walk in, her eyes laser-focused on Beau. “There you are!” she cried.
“Tallulah.” Beau’s voice was neutral. He gestured for Milburn to let her pass, and the clan witch rushed toward us.
“I’m so terribly sorry for your loss,” she said to Beau, holding out both of her hands.
“Thank you, my dear,” Beau said, accepting her hands for a moment before releasing them. “That’s very kind.”
“You poor man.” Her eyes fixed on me, then flitted to the werewolf just behind me. “Hello again, Miss Luther. I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting your friend.”
“This is Tobias,” I said, turning so he could step forward and shake hands. I didn’t miss the tiny wrinkle of his nose when the witch’s expensive perfume hit him, although Tallulah had already turned her head to speak to Beau again.
“I stopped at the History Center before I came here. My wards are intact.”
I would have expected her to sound more triumphant about that. “You had warding there too?” I asked.
Beau answered for her. “Because I am a frequent patron. Tallulah has wards for my protection at all my usual haunts.” He frowned. “No pun intended.”
“What kind of wards were they?” I asked.
Tallulah narrowed her eyes at me like I’d accused her of farting in public. Then I got it: her wards weren’t broken, but they hadn’t kept out the person who’d planted the spirit bottle. She’d still failed Beau.
“The usual,” she said, lifting her chin. “It was an intention spell, first and foremost. No one intending to harm Beau in any way could come on the property.”
“Even during the day?”
“Yes. It’s also designed to alert me if a vampire or werewolf steps foot on the grounds.”
From behind me, Tobias asked, “Not witches?”
“No, there are too many people in the area with active witchblood,” Tallulah replied briskly. “I would receive alarms for everything from school field trips to board meetings.”
“Hang on.” I held up my good hand. “If the spell works based on a person’s intentions, what’s to stop someone from paying a stranger to drop off a package at the museum during working hours?”
All four of them—Beau, Milburn, Tallulah, and Tobias—turned to look at me. “Think about it,” I insisted. “Say I want to kill Beau, and I’ve got a bomb. I could just grab any stranger off the street”—I took hold of Tobias’s sleeve—“and say, ‘Hey, I’ll give you twenty dollars to drop this off at the History Center.’” I mimed handing Tobias a package, which he gamely pretended to accept. “Now Tobias walks it in and drops it off at the front desk. At no point does he have any ill intentions toward Beau.”
Beau and Tallulah exchanged a troubled glance. “I see now that my ward may have had a blind spot,” Tallulah said stiffly.
“It’s not your fault,” Beau said, shaking his head. “We hadn’t considered the possibility of a bomb. Even if we had, most explosives have a sharp chemical scent, or make some sort of noise.”
He was right. “No one anticipated a spirit bottle,” I said.
Tallulah’s eyes widened, and her skin seemed to pale under her spray tan. “That’s what it was? I thought—that is—some sort of ordinary explosive . . .”
“You smell scared,” Tobias observed.
I fought not to smile. “You’re the first person who knew the term before I explained it,” I said to Tallulah. “Have you seen them before?”
“No!” She took a tiny step backward. “Of course not.” Her eyes flicked toward Beau, and she swallowed hard. “Witches . . . have stories. Old stories.”
Beau stared at her for a second, and then his face cleared. “About my family, you mean.”
“Yes.” She sounded relieved. “The Calhouns used to make spirit bottles.”
Chapter 28
“Now,” Beau said a little while later, when Tallulah and I were seated in his study, “tell me more about these stories.”
Tallulah had accepted a glass of bourbon, and she paused to take a greedy sip before she answered. I’d declined a drink. At this point it would just make me sleepier. Milburn had gone up to check on Odessa and Whitney, and Tobias had volunteered to check the grounds again. He hadn’t actually said so, but I suspected he was eager to get outside and explore the estate some more. I asked him