Another reason Alistair came home to Skyhold instead of going straight to Halamshiral: they can shut out the rest of the world for a little while before plunging into whatever the Council brings.

There's a neatly-folded stack of clothes on the chaise -- Josephine's doing, maybe? They don't belong to Alistair, that's for certain. (Or...perhaps they do now.) Something to worry about later: right now, he's intent on scaling the ladder and clearing a space for them to burrow properly.