Free Strongest Conjuration by Skyler White

1. Humble
    I opened my eyes, and the mudflats vanished, leaving a whiff of ocean and a tooth-deep case of the shivers. Phil, who had been reading on the sofa next to me, put a fat white mug into my chilled hands. He wrapped an arm around me with a whiskery, “Welcome back, Ren.”
    I breathed in green tea steam and let the sensory jungle of reality drift into background. In the Garden, any detail that doesn’t signify evaporates. Here, the cardboard smell of packing boxes and the snuffle from the kitchen of Susi at his food dish meant only that Phil had already fed the dog, and it was getting late.
    â€œAbout four hours.” Phil answered the universal question of Incrementalists just back from grazing. “Learn anything?”
    I shook my head. We both knew I wouldn’t, but Phil’s way of asking made it sound reasonable—noble, almost—for me to burn vacation days trying.
    â€œBut you’re still having fun?”
    â€œFun? I’m conducting important, potentially groundbreaking research here!”
    He kissed the top of my head. “You’re exploring.”
    â€œJust mucking about,” I said.
    Phil chuckled at the dumb joke. My Garden is infinite brackish mud. His is a villa he admired two thousand years ago in Rome, a sprawling decrepit beauty. Oskar roams a gritty, burgeoning late-eighteenth-century Paris. You’d think a UI designer could do better, but no. I’m the interface designer with a bad interface.
    â€œHungry?” Phil nudged me. “I’ve waited very virtuously for cheese and crackers.”
    I needed to eat, but Phil’s shoulder, snug and muscular against mine, was feeding something emptier than my belly. “Let’s wait for Ramon,” I said and, to stay curled next to him a little longer, added, “What do we call him now anyway?”
    â€œI call him Ray.”
    â€œHe hates that.”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œI mean, what do we call him now he has boobs and a PhD?” I said, and the doorbell rang. “Jesus, he’s early.”
    â€œAlmost always.”
    Susi skittered into the room, delighted to alert us to the bell surely only he heard. Phil stood and caught him by the collar.
    I’d meant to straighten up the front room, at least. Phil’s coffee, my tea, the electric cup warmer, and both our laptops cluttered the table, and we still had no place for coats.
    Phil opened the door with a funny little bow. “Welcome to our humble home,” he said, as he always did.
    I chucked the cup warmer in a drawer and collected our mugs.
    Ramon shook Phil’s hand with the severe economy of motion I remembered from his previous body, despite Sarah’s softer curves. He had the thickest eyelashes I’dseen on anyone over twelve. “What a great house,” he said. “Ren must have picked it.” He handed me a bottle of wine.
    â€œAnima Negra,” I read. “Spanish?”
    â€œMallorcan,” he corrected. “A new winery, but it tastes like … It tastes right.”
    2. Sweet
    I let Susi outside to play, and Ramon opened his housewarming present that tasted of his home. Phil sautéed garlic in a mix of olive oil and butter, and we all ate cheese and crackers while Ramon caught us up on his death and new Second. “It was poorly timed,” he conceded. “I was unprepared.”
    â€œVery careless of you.” Phil’s tone was light, but his knife went
thiwk thwik
through the fat red peppers with a keen, hard edge. He’d spent a lot of time at Casino Del Sol during the days we’d waited to learn whether Ramon’s memories and personality would survive the spiking ritual. “Damn lucky we already had a recruit lined up,” he said.
    â€œFor Irina’s stub, yes.” Ramon glanced at me, but I kept my face neutral. Or full of crackers, which is mostly the same thing.
    â€œIrina can stay in stub,” Phil said. “Doesn’t