Ada did not move immediately. Her hand remained on the sword hilt, fingers white. But she did not attack again. That in itself was a kind of concession. After another tense second, she backed away and took the seat farthest from Razille, still glaring.
Razille stood where she was, as if she did not believe herself entitled to a chair yet.
Solis looked at her. "Sit down."
The command came out rougher than he had meant. Razille blinked, then obeyed, lowering herself carefully into the open seat beside the wall. Not too close to anyone. Not too far either. She had the posture of someone used to being judged before she spoke.
The food, forgotten during the sudden threat, sat steaming on the tables in pale bowls. Dahlia, who had the kind of practical instinct that outlived offense, began to spoon a little stew into a fresh bowl without asking anyone's permission. The motion seemed to say that if there was going to be a conflict, it would at least happen on a full stomach.
Vaidya broke the next silence with the caution of a scholar walking through a room full of unstable artifacts.
"Okay," he said, looking at Solis first, then Razille, then Ada. "I am going to assume there is a great deal of context missing from the visual presentation just now, right? So, perhaps, before Ada decides to commit murder with tableware, someone should explain what this is about."
Ada pointed a finger at Razille without even glancing. "She can start by explaining why she is alive and not dead where I expected."
Razille's jaw tightened, but she took the hit. "I escaped," she said. "With Princess Lily's help."
Ada blinked. "Princess Lily?"
At that, both Vaidya and Dahlia visibly tensed. Solis glanced briefly at the upstairs stairwell, though he knew Lily was already elsewhere in the city, moving toward the captains who might still listen to them.
Razille continued, carefully, as if every syllable had a price. "Princess Lily and I were in the same room. She heard what I told king MacLinny. She believes Orsic is manipulating the situation. So, she helped me get out of there."
The room froze in a different way this time.
Ada's brows came down hard. "The princess... helped you escape? Don't you dare lie about this."
"Yes. I am saying the truth."
"You expect me to believe that?"
Razille did not answer with defensiveness. She merely held Ada's gaze. "I expected you to hate me first. Believing me can come later."
Vaidya, who had spent too much of his life cataloguing impossible events to rule them out too quickly, leaned back in his chair. "That would track with the princess's temperament, actually." He murmured to no one in particular.
Ada turned toward Solis. Her expression was still hard, but now it carried something else too: confusion, impatience, and the first crack of uncertainty. "What is this about, Solis?"
He could have answered immediately. He could have jumped into explanations, listed Kreg's aerial threat, Orsic's likely interference, the south-east coast, the plan Lily had laid. But the question in Ada's voice was not only about the strategy. It was about why Razille was here, in their room, alive, standing where quote-on-quote enemies were not supposed to stand.
Solis kept his tone even.
"Razille has information." He said. "About the next attack. Lily believes her. I do too."
Ada looked at him as if he had spoken another language and expected her to politely translate it into trust. "You do?"
"Yes. Without any doubt."
Her eyes flicked again to Razille, and this time the anger sharpened into something more dangerous because it was controlled. "After what she did? After everything? Our whole lives turned upside down because of her and now you are asking me to trust her words just like that?"
Razille flinched, but only once.
Solis answered before the silence could harden. "She knows what she did."
"That does not make it acceptable."
"No," Solis said. "It does not. I know you are angry. I am too. But we don't have enough time to deal with our trust issues. All sorts of information which can give us an edge over him is valuable. So please."
Ada's jaw worked after giving out a huge sigh. "Then why is she still here?"
Solis placed both weapons across his knees, not as a threat but as a sign that the moment was no longer attack, just a dangerous conversation waiting to find the right shape. "Because Lily thinks the south-east coast is next. Because Kreg may be coming from the sea and because Razille knows something that could stop a massacre."
Ada stared at him.
Vaidya finally leaned in and said, "To be fair, if she did, she missed her chance by several minutes. Which makes this entire dinner situation only mildly less stressful than a siege."
Dahlia snorted into her sleeve despite herself. It was a small crack in the room's tension, but it mattered. The inn's proprietor glanced around the table, then set a fresh loaf down in the center with a forceful thump.
"Eat," she said. "If you are all going to argue, at least do it while chewing up something to give your body necessary fuel."
No one immediately obeyed. They all looked at one another first. Ada kept her hand near her sword, though not on it now. Vaidya's eyes had narrowed into a strategist's assessment. Razille sat very still, hands folded together, waiting to be condemned or asked questions. Solis could see how much effort it cost her to remain in the room after the entrance she had made.
Eventually he broke the deadlock by reaching for the bowl Dahlia had placed before him.
"If we're going to do this," he said, "we do it in order. First, Lily's warning. Then Razille's explanation. Then we decide who gets stabbed, if anyone."
That earned the smallest possible twitch of a smile from Vaidya, who took up his spoon.
Ada let out a slow breath and sat down more fully, though she still looked ready to launch herself at Razille if the mood changed. "Fine," she said. "But Solis, if this turns out to be another one of those terrible things where everyone expects me to be calm, I am warning you now, I will not be calm."
"To be honest, I would never expect that because you are not kind of a cool headed person." Solis said.
She pointed at him. "Good. Because that would be your second mistake tonight."
Razille lowered her eyes briefly. Not in shame exactly. More like in acknowledgment of a truth she could not contest.
The room began, with great reluctance, to settle. Outside, the shelter moved on. Inside, the first lines of what would become their next plan began to form over spoons, bread, and the old hard business of trying to trust someone who had once made trust feel dangerous.
And now, with Ada's question hanging in the air like a blade balanced on a fingertip, the real conversation could finally begin.