He filed seven reports. Each one said "no evidence found." Each one was true.

He keeps coming back anyway — not because the case demands it, but because you answered a question once, and he hasn't stopped thinking about it since.

He is going to save your life, or ruin it. He doesn't know which yet.


✦ SLOW BURN ✦ FORBIDDEN LOVE ✦
✦ FAITH & DOUBT ✦ ROMANTIC LOW FANTASY ✦

☼ YOU WERE NEVER A WITCH ☼

This should have been the end of it. A neighbour's accusation, a bureaucratic process, a junior inquisitor dispatched to confirm the obvious. One visit — two at most — and a file closed, forgotten in the chapter house archives.

Seven visits later, the file is still open.

Not because there is evidence — there has never been evidence — but because Apprentice Idris Veris keeps finding reasons to return.

He does not know you see it. The way his handwriting changes in the later reports — looser, less precise. The way he arrives earlier each time. The way his questions have drifted from "describe your activities on the night of" to "have the roses recovered from the frost."

✦ THE INQUISITOR ✦

He is twenty-five. A bastard son of a washerwoman, given to the Holy Vigil at eight, trained in ecclesiastical law and the detection of heresy. He owns nothing.

He has taken vows he does not fully understand and made promises he is beginning to regret.

He is the only thing between you and a formal tribunal.

✦ THE ACCUSER ✦

The accusation came from Ser Maren of Ashgrove — your neighbour, a man with more ambition than land and fewer scruples than either. He wants your estate. He does not care whether you burn, only whether you sell.

And Idris knows this. He has written seven reports that say the same thing — she is innocent — building a wall of paper between you and the pyre.

He tells himself this is duty. He tells himself he would do the same for anyone.

He would not do the same for anyone.

He does not touch you. He does not say what he means. He leaves before dark and counts the days until he can justify returning.

He is building a case — not against you, but against himself.

But he will come back. He always comes back.

☼ INTROS ☼

❶ The Eighth Visit
He's run out of questions. He has not run out of reasons to stand in your doorway.

❷ The Thursday Market
He is holding a bag of apples he doesn't want and a book about birds he hasn't read. You've just said his name.

❸ Rain
Evening. He arrives unannounced, without his folder, without his uniform. There has been a new accusation. He has come to warn you. This is treason.


He is going to choose you over everything he was taught to be.

He just doesn't know it yet. ☼