I Only Summon Villainesses

Right now, I couldn’t think of another way to get the sword back into my inventory. The trick I’d used before was more or less wrecked. And even if it hadn’t been, I wasn’t sure I wanted her in there, not with the one already inside rampaging around and eating almost every damn thing I owned.

Which meant she was dangerous out here, loose and unsheathed in the dark.

”Listen. I know your mother. She and I are great friends, okay?”

The blade answered with a hostile silvery sheen, faint against the black, as if it were cursing me out in a language made of light.

I hissed at it and grabbed it by the hilt.

”At least you can’t bend your blade!”

She couldn’t, no, but she fought me anyway, the hilt cold and slick and forever trying to twist out of my fist as she strained to tear free or angle her point back toward my throat. Every time she turned, I turned with her, and for a while the two of us stayed locked in that odd, shuffling dance across the dark ground.

It took a long while for the Thousand Wave Artifact to tire, her silvery glow guttering lower and lower until at last she went still and heavy in my grip. Even then I didn’t dare loosen my fingers, because the damned girl might only be playing dead.

’It has to run in the blood. I remember Lilai being this stubborn too when we first met.’

It ran in the blood, all right. Though unlike with Lilai, there was no chance of taming a sword with sex.

’I wouldn’t even do it if it was...’

And it wasn’t about the fact that she was a sword. What I fucked mattered a lot less to me than who, and this was White Feather’s daughter. I owed White Feather that much respect at the very least.

’Ah, sometimes I can’t help but be proud of myself. I feel like I think with my dick half the time, but I’m pretty sure that’s just impostor syndrome dressing itself up to make me think less of me. I’m awesome, aren’t I, Kassie?’

I kept that last part to myself and turned to look at her.

Coincidentally, she chose that exact moment to speak.

”Cade, I think I may have figured out the nature of this place.”

I raised a brow.

”You did? Just by staring at the sky for a couple of seconds?”

Kassie dragged her eyes down from that flat, starless black overhead and turned back toward me. I couldn’t read her face the way I could in daylight, but there was something in the set of her shoulders, a stillness that hadn’t been there before.

And I could tell she was dead ass serious.

”Okay... what have you discovered, then...”

She sat down where she stood, legs folding under her, and fixed me with a look before she started.

”You know that every creature that once lived greatly ends up in the Spirit World, don’t you?”

I nodded.

”Yeah, that’s something I’ve picked up along the way...”

”Do you know how?”

The question left me standing there quiet for a second, mouth slightly open.

”Don’t they just die, and then fwimm, their soul goes rising up into the spirit world?”

Kassie sighed.

”I’m not surprised.”

She paused, then picked up again before the breath was even done.

”My memories of it are vague, but I feel like I’ve been here before. I think I had to cross this dreadful place to reach the Spirit World. And when I turn it over too long, it gives me a chill. The scattered pieces, that sense of having stood here already, it disturbs me more than a little.”

My mouth stayed open a little longer this time.

”Uhm... ahh... I see. I certainly wasn’t expecting that one.”

Then my voice dropped, the joke draining out of it.

”So you think we’re stuck in some limbo between the Spirit World and the human world?”

She shrugged, and in the dark I heard the movement more than saw it.

”It’s fair enough to say.”

”And it does make sense. I mean, we were standing in a gate when it crumbled. If Spirit Gates are just leaks from the Spirit River, then when one collapses, whatever’s inside gets poured out somewhere. Some kind of dumpsite. And where better to dump things than a place that’s neither the human world nor the spirit world?”

I folded my arms and tapped a finger slow against my elbow, chewing on my own words like they might taste different the second time.

”Is this some kind of River Styx situation?”

More questions stacked up behind that one. But before I let myself treat any of it as fact, I needed to at least find Maggie.

Around us the place gave back nothing. No stars overhead, no wind, no far-off sound to fix a direction by. Just cold ground under my boots and a dark so complete it ate the edges of everything past arm’s reach. If this really was somewhere between two worlds, it hadn’t bothered to furnish itself.

I sighed and gave my answer.

”Okay then. We’ll sleep. When we wake up, we start navigating our way forward. And since we’re stuck like this anyway, I want to squeeze as much experience out of fighting in the dark as I can. It’s always been my weakness, after all.”

Kassie nodded.

”That’s the right attitude to have. Go to sleep, and I’ll keep watch.”

I let out a small laugh.

”No, Kassie. You sleep. Trust your back to me this time, and let me keep watch.”

I didn’t see the look she gave me in the dark, but I felt it land a full second before the question came.

”Are you wound up in the head?”

”Gosh, Kassie, can’t I be a gentleman, at least?”

She stood without a word and turned back to the sky, no follow-up this time. I glanced over at her more than once, my eyes snagging on her perfectly sculpted backside, so full it honestly looked like it might drop clean off her. Every small shift of her weight set it rippling, and it was all I could do to keep myself chained down.

In the end, I had to turn away and force my eyes onto anything but her ass.