I Only Summon Villainesses

For the first time in many years, no words bubbled in my throat. No sarcastic response, no joke or usual sexual deflection to sidestep the uncomfortable moment. All of it fled from me.

An unpleasant frown climbed my face.

It felt like Pyre Saint had just poked something I had buried deep.

I opened my mouth… and closed it.

’Why does morality matter to me?’

The question echoed in my skull, and for a horrible moment, I couldn’t find the glib answer.

Instead, something else surfaced. A memory I kept locked in a box I never opened.

A nine-year-old boy standing in a room that smelled like smoke and melted plastic. His father’s laptop, destroyed. Retaliation for the belt marks still burning on his back. The satisfaction of watching something his father valued turn to ruin.

And then.

The sound of sirens. His mother’s face. The sequence of events that followed, one domino tipping into the next until she was gone and he was standing at a funeral wondering if he had killed her.

My jaw tightened.

’That’s not… I’m not going there.’

“You went somewhere,” Maggie said flatly. Her cold eyes had not left my face for a single moment. “Your expression just changed three times in two seconds.”

I forced a smile. It felt wrong on my face. Like wearing clothes that didn’t fit.

“Did it? Must be the lighting.”

She did not smile back. She did not look away. She simply waited, like a patient predator that knew its prey had nowhere to run.

“Morality matters to me,” I said slowly, testing each word before I released it, “because I know what I am without it.”

The words came out heavier than I intended.

Maggie tilted her head slightly for just a fraction. But her expression remained unchanged, that flat mask of cold observation.

“And what are you without it?”

’A boy who destroyed something and watched everything else burn with it.’

I did not say that. Instead, I looked away, toward the window where afternoon light spilled through curtains I did not remember closing.

“Someone who hurts people that don’t deserve it.”

There was silence for a while.

When I looked back, Maggie was still watching me. But something in her gaze had shifted. Not warmer. Pyre Saint did not do warm. But perhaps… less dismissive.

“That,” she said quietly, “is the first honest thing you’ve said to me… to anyone.”

I laughed. It came out hollow.

“Don’t get used to it.”

I turned away before she could dig any deeper. Before the box could open any wider. Before I had to look at what was inside and remember why I had locked it in the first place.

“I need to check on Kassie,” I said, and my voice was almost normal again. “Can you teach me Link this link thing so I can do just that?”

Maggie regarded me for a moment longer, her cold eyes still carrying that measuring weight. Then she exhaled through her nose, the closest thing to a sigh I had ever heard from her.

“Sit.”

I blinked. “What?”

“Sit down, Summoner. You cannot learn Link while standing around like an anxious fool.”

I hesitated, then moved to the sofa and sat. Maggie remained sitting too, looking at me with that perpetual expression of mild disgust.

“Link is not complicated,” she said flatly. “It is the thread that binds a Summoner to their Summon. You have felt it before, even if you did not know what it was. When you sense where your princess is without seeing her. When you know she is in danger before anyone tells you. And I’m very sure she must’ve used it to communicate with you a couple of times.’

I thought about it, she was right. There had been moments, that Kassie had spoke straight into my head, I just hadn’t think I could do the same, or I hadn’t thought about it at all.

“That thread exists whether you acknowledge it or not,” Maggie continued. “Learning Link is simply learning to pull on it deliberately.”

“Pull on it how?”

She looked at me like I had asked how to breathe.

“Close your eyes.”

I did.

“Find the place in your chest where you feel your Summons. Not your Nave. The place where the connection lives.”

I searched inward. Past the familiar hum of essence, past the white cathedral that existed somewhere in the depths of me. And there, subtle but present, I found it. Two threads. One burned cold, sharp, and distant. The other pulsed with a steady warmth that felt like embers.

“I feel them.”

“Good. Now choose one. Pull.”

I reached for the warmer thread, the one that felt like Kassie, and I pulled.

The sensation was immediate. Like a door opening in my mind. Suddenly I could feel her, not just as a presence but as a direction, southeast, moving.

And then, like words forming without sound:

’Are you alright?’

Her voice, but not her voice. It was in my head, clear as if she had spoken directly into my ear.

’Kassie. Can you hear me?’

There was a pause for a moment. Then, with what I could only describe as amused surprise:

’So you finally learned. I was wondering how long it would take.’

I opened my eyes. Maggie was watching me with something that might have been grudging acknowledgment.

“You connected.”

“I did.” I could not quite keep the wonder out of my voice. “She can hear me.”

“She always could. You simply never knew how to speak.” Maggie stood and turned away, moving toward the window. “Link works both ways. She can reach you as easily as you reached her. She can also share her senses with you if she chooses, let you see what she sees. But that requires trust, practice and essence.”

I sat with that for a moment, still feeling the thread humming gently in my chest. The connection to Kassie, alive and present even across the distance.

’Are you safe?’ I asked through the Link.

’Safe enough. The man is behaving. The elf lady is… fragile but holding. I will update you when there is something worth updating.’

There was a pause. Then, her voice came again, but softer:

’Are you alright?’

Something loosened in my chest that I had not realized was tight and I smiled.

’Yea… pretty much comfortable. This is the best I’ve felt in three months.’

She sounded like she had nodded.

’It’s good to hear from you.’

I smiled again.

’It’s good to hear from you too.’

I let the connection settle into the background, still present but no longer active. When I looked up, Maggie had returned to staring out the window, her back to me.

“Thank you,” I said.

She did not turn around.

“Do not thank me. Thank your own incompetence for not knowing something so basic.”

I smiled. It felt more real this time.

“There she is.”