I Only Summon Villainesses

”Then overland,” Tristan said. ”Through Asharan territory, up through the Valdepura Pass. We enter Recimiras from the south.”

I stared at the map. ”We’re going through Ashara? Isn’t that the continent full of warlords and...” I searched for what little I remembered about the place from Knight Flint’s sparse mentions and the even sparser lessons at the academy.

”The edge of it,” Derry said. ”Not the deep desert. The routes exist because Recimiras cultivated them. Smuggler’s roads. Safe enough if you know the way.”

”And if you don’t know the way?”

”Then you die in the desert.” Derry said it like he was discussing the weather. ”But we know people who know the way. That’s why we’re stopping in Crystalis first — to arrange passage with the right crew.”

The door creaked open behind us. Levi slipped back in, now actually carrying a waterskin. He must have realized the alibi needed supporting evidence.

”What’d I miss?” he asked, settling against the wall near the door.

”The part where we explain why we’re not getting murdered by Inquisitors,” Tristan said dryly.

”Ah. The fun part.” Levi took a drink from the waterskin. ”Did you tell him about the three months?”

I turned sharply. ”Three months?”

Po’s enthusiasm returned in full force. ”Three months at sea, Mr. Cade! Well, not all at sea. Some of it is waiting in Crystalis for the right ship. And some of it is the overland part. But mostly at sea! Isn’t that exciting?”

’Exciting is one word for it.’

Three months. The number settled into my chest with an uncomfortable weight. Three months of ocean, of cramped cabins, of wherever this was leading.

”The direct route is three to five weeks,” Derry explained. ”But the direct route gets us caught. This route...” He tapped the map, his thick finger tracing the long curve from Faeren Heights to Crystalis to Ashara’s coast to Recimiras. ”This takes longer. We’re not just traveling — we’re disappearing. By the time anyone thinks to look for us in Recimiras, we’ll have been there for weeks.”

”Why Recimiras?” I asked.

The question had been sitting in my chest since I’d first heard the name, but there hadn’t been time to ask it — not while Kassie was dragging me through training. The obvious answer was that it served as the base of the Black Snow Company.

But that only pushed the question back a step.

’Why is it there of all places...’

The cabin went quiet. Even Po stopped fidgeting.

Derry and Tristan exchanged a look. Some unspoken communication passed between them—the kind that came from years of working together, a whole conversation compressed into a glance.

”You know what Recimiras is?” Derry asked.

”A free city?”

”The Eternal Light Church calls it an open wound in the body of civilization,” Levi supplied from his spot by the door. He seemed amused by the phrase. ”They’ve wanted to burn it down for half a century. Crusade after crusade proposed, crusade after crusade rejected. The Emperor doesn’t want to pay for it.”

”It’s not just that the Radiant Faith hates it,” Tristan said. ”It’s why they hate it. Recimiras doesn’t recognize Inquisitorial authority. Heresy accusations require evidence there — actual evidence, witnesses, due process. Like any other crime.”

I processed that. In Aetheris, as far as I knew, the Church’s word was law when it came to matters of faith. If they said you were a heretic, you were a heretic. The trial was a formality.

”They also have unlicensed spirit academies,” Po added, his voice dropping to something almost conspiratorial. ”And old books! Really old books that the Church burned everywhere else. And they don’t turn in anyone that—”

”The point,” Derry cut in, ”is that Recimiras is the one place on this continent where the Church’s reach doesn’t extend. Where being declared an enemy of the faith doesn’t automatically make you an enemy of the state.”

”Where someone traveling with certain... companion... might not be arrested on sight,” Tristan added, and the way he said companions made it clear he meant Kassie.

Or me.

Or whatever I was becoming.

I looked down at the map again. The route suddenly made more sense — not just as a path to avoid detection, but as a path to the one place where detection might not matter. Three months of running toward the only corner of the world where we might be able to stop running.

The weight in my chest shifted. Not lighter, exactly. But different.