The night bore a chill; silk had not been the most practical choice for the weather, for the location, for the cold, drafty stone halls of Skyhold. But it was, however, the most practical choice for the task at hand.

He was in his atrium, in spite of the late hour. The torches burned low, casting flickers on the walls and floor, carving sharp lines of shadow. She leaned against the door—she looked spectacular in low warm light, she was aware—with the silk of her déshabillé (the latest fashion for bedchambers in Orlais, she'd heard) hanging in disarray from her shoulders. Her hair hung loose to her waist, uncharacteristically wild and lending a tawdry appearance to the way she leaned against the archway, arms crossed and barely clad in her nightclothes.

"Up late again?" she asked. She kept her voice low, but still it echoed in the atrium (as everything did.) Her footsteps, too, rebounded off the walls as she ambled a step closer to his makeshift desk. "Cutting into your dream time, isn't it? I'm having trouble sleeping too, it seems."