The Double Life of Incorporate Things (Magic Most Foul) by Leanna Hieber Page A

watched the unfolding reactions at the table.
    The four youths seemed to have broken from a trance. They stared at Stevens and at the dripping mess before them alternately, their brows furrowing. Three of them stood to clean themselves off and walked away as if they weren’t exactly sure of themselves; one just turned from Stevens but remained sitting, using a kerchief to wipe down the surfaces directly around him, his shoulders hunched, either tired, drunk, miserable, or all three. Stevens clenched his jaw and turned to pace in the dim light of the tavern lanterns, thinking no one was watching.
    Just as the group dispersed and the moment was foiled, I noticed two young black-clad women in short black cloaks and hats with net veils peering in through the tavern window from the street beyond, arm in arm. They waved at one of the young men within, and his visage brightened at the sight of them.
    My heart pulled, as all of them reminded me of the characters in my dream. In my dream, there had been screaming as young men were turning into monsters, transformed by insidious means, dehumanized to wretched experiments meant to keep the victims in fear. Here, there were only smiles. I wanted to cry out in triumph. We changed the fate of the night...
    Inside, Stevens turned, his sallow face hard and haunted. I wondered what drove that man. Was it as misguided as it had been with Doctor Preston, reanimating out of love? What made Stevens want to alter a person so? Or was he merely a possessed body, the actual original researcher having long ago been dispatched?
    He stole a glass from a ledge where a few smart-looking fellows were hotly debating politics and downed the beverage. His fist clenched and his arm raised, seeming ready to throw the glass before he then thought better of it as one of the staff approached him. I overheard the manager gruffly ask about whether he’d been trying to sell products in their establishment. Stevens was immediately contrite and ordered more alcohol. I wished in that moment this “doctor” of questionable repute would have picked a fight so that a local police officer would have been called to take him in. I thought about throwing something to seek escalation, but escaping a bar brawl wasn’t in my particular expertise.
    Confident the doctor wasn’t going anywhere as he sat back at the table now wholly abandoned, defeated, a glass of liquor in each hand, I took my eyes off the man and searched for Jonathon. Feeling so vindicated by Stevens’s failure to incite another incident, I turned to Jonathon upon his return to the shadows surrounding us and nearly threw my arms around him. Instead, I merely stood very closely, hoping to regain the scorching intimacy we’d had from the moments our souls had first met within the magic of a canvas...
    “Let’s not be strangers, Natalie,” he said, reassuring my foremost concern as if he’d read my mind.
    “Let’s not,” I replied eagerly. “I’ve been so worried, can feel you withdrawing—”
    “I’ve a lot on my mind,” he interrupted, his voice hard. “Dark things, Natalie. I don’t want to burden you—”
    “I want—need—to know everything. I want to bear the weight of that burden with you, just like when your spirit kept darkening that painting.”
    He sighed heavily. “Home is calling me, Natalie. I’m going to have to return to the estate at some point. I can’t avoid it any longer.”
    “I’m coming with you,” I declared.
    He just gave me a pained look.
    “I don’t want us to be apart,” I insisted. “I want us to be together and for everything to be perfect, never pressured, never looking over our shoulders, but just perfect.”
    He stared at me, and I could see the flicker of doubt in his eyes. “So you will accept me? If I were to ask...again?”
    My heart jumped at this, but it still had to be for the right reason. “If you ask for no other reason than for your own desire. Not because anyone forced you to. I’ve