After the intense questioning — an apparatus of rune-slate scans, witness statements, and Orsic's pressing gaze — the pair were moved to a guarded antechamber. It smelled like cedar and cold iron. Their hands were free but the presence of K.P.P. men was constant, a rhythm of unblinking eyes.
It was here that the room softened in the way only human company can. A figure in a brown cloak stepped through the doorway — Ada, her face pressed with exhaustion and relief, followed by Seraphine and Almond, Colins a few paces behind. The sight of Ada was a small kind of healing. She crossed the stone floor with the sure-footed stride of someone who had been on sentry for too long and then — without any pretense — she dropped to one knee at Solis's side and took his hand in both of hers.
"You idiot!" she said, voice low and sharp with all the affection that could pass for scolding. "Do you have any idea how much afraid I was? I thought for a moment you were a goner. Don't be reckless next time please."
"You... you survived?" Solis's voice broke on the shape of the word. He had wanted it more than steady footing, more than explanation.
Ada laughed under her breath, sudden and brittle. "Of course I have survived. Where else would I be? You think you can walk halfway across Caldemount and not have me find out? I would have stabbed you myself if the K.P.P. let me."
Seraphine's expression, always cut like a careful blade, lightened only enough to be dangerous. "We all locked the upper ring from the outside world. All Postknights present here safely evacuated in here." she said. "Colins argued we needed a Postknight presence here to balance Orsic's autonomy. Orsic will never give us full autonomy, but he permitted a guarded reprieve. For now you are under watch but not under lock."
Almond hovered a step behind, awkward relief coloring his stance. "I—" he began and then stopped, clearly unused to such raw edges of feeling. He gave Solis a stiff nod. "Glad you're not a corpse. For now."
"Ugh! How dare you? In a situation like this are you still acting tough?" Ada gets really angry now. "Are so blinded by your jealousy or something?"
Vaidya sagged in a chair like a man who had been carrying a load up a hill and finally put it down. He let out a laugh that was more of a breath, cutting off the heated moment, "I lied to Elizabeth. I had to. I couldn't watch and do nothing. I wanted to come with you. I will tell her why later."
Colins stepped close and placed a rough hand on Solis's shoulder. "You did what you could." he said quietly, deliberately trying to make it mean something more than mere consolation. "We will sort this. Cassandra's lines are working the files. We'll find the gaps in Orsic's narrative and plug them with something truer."
For the first time that day, Solis felt his chest loosen slightly. He was still exhausted. The air of suspicion still hung heavily and Orsic's shadow pooled in the doorway. But being with Ada, with Vaidya steady and Colins speaking in that low, accurate tone — it was something like being on a harbor.
He forced a smile that did not reach his eyes. "How bad did I look when they checked on me?" he asked.
Ada's hand squeezed his knuckles. "Like you had been given the sort of beating nothing could mend."
Seraphine's mouth curved in something almost like softness. "That's enough for today guys. Eat. Rest, but keep your head light. The inquiries will not end. Orsic will cultivate the story that the Postknights are untrustworthy. We will need all our faces in public and our facts cleaner than their slates."
Solis looked to Vaidya and found the scholar's smiling now, determined in a way that no rune could measure. He felt torn: the want to follow Razille and to reclaim the Blazing Dragon Sword and the heavy knowledge that any step taken wrong might play into Orsic's hands and most importantly to make things right. For the moment, however, survival meant fewer moves, sharper shelter, and the small human warmth of colleagues, mentors and friends assembled around him.
"Be careful," Colins said more softly, leaning in. "Orsic watches everything like a man tending a pyre. Don't feed him excuse to burn us all. But if he presses too hard, we must press harder in answers. Cassandra and I will keep the investigations — quietly. Until we get them the truth."
As they moved out of the room to be led to the quarters set aside for the Postknight group — guarded, awkwardly comfortable, a place that lay between palace suspicion and a soldier's need — Solis felt both the weight and the advantage of the company behind him. Orsic's presence lingered like an oath ready to be broken; the accusations sat like cold stones in his throat. But Ada's steady hand and Vaidya's sad but bright courage were a kind of a map.
They would have to walk that map carefully. The city above slept, or pretended to. The tapestries in the hall could not tell them if a true story was being woven beneath their threads. Solis tightened his fingers around the medallion underneath his shirt and allowed himself to lean into their steady bodies, the single, small promise he could hold: he would not be the instrument that let Kreg rule. He did not yet know how. He only knew the names of those who would stand and, for now, that was enough.