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Confirmation reaches them in the spring that Elwing of Sirion has the Silmaril.
It takes as long as the spring only because they weren't looking. They can stretch the oath that far, they can be disinterested in knowing - but now they know, and so there it is. Elwing of Sirion is twenty-three. Half-man, so fully grown. Sirion is a city of refugees. Elves and Men and, since there are Men, children. Elwing herself has infant children.
They debate whether to send messengers. Debating is allowed, even protracted debating. The Oath, these days, is loud in their minds, and louder when they're pushing it like this, but they drag out the debate for a few months. Messengers will probably be shot on sight. The last time Elwing of Sirion received news of the House of Fëanor it would have been the news that her brothers, twins, aged seven, had not survived the sack of Menegroth.
They send messengers anyway. The messengers are shot on sight. They have good armor, Fëanorian armor, and return home injured but not lethally. Maglor's songs no longer stitch them together. War makes you worse at healing. Maglor's songs are more powerful than ever - he can knock back a wave of approaching enemies, he can make a blade's next touch deadly, he can make them faster and more impervious to danger, but he can no longer do healing.
Maedhros, when he thinks about this, thinks that perhaps there needs to be part of you that is not broken for healing spells to draw on. Or perhaps the Enemy is amused to strip that away first. Perhaps the Enemy finds it suited to the theme as the Oath tugs and yanks and twists them into violence against the lands they once defended and the peoples they once sheltered.
They send messengers to Sirion again. The messengers deliver a plea for the Silmaril, an offer of anything at all in exchange. The messengers do not return at all.
The Enemy is many many hundreds of miles from here but at night Maedhros can hear him in his head. Is it so implausible that I really let you go? the Enemy likes saying. You serve me better free than you ever would have willingly.
The Oath allows them to work slowly. They begin planning the sack of the refugee camp even more slowly than the Oath allows, so slowly that its currents are constantly tugging at them. Any slower and the currents would erode all the things they care about which are not the Oath, and it would be a disaster to go to Sirion once they've been stripped of their capacity to care about anything that is not the Silmaril. So they do not hold out forever. But they work as slowly as they can.
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imeanforever
"Oh. I wouldn't mind talking to people as long as it's not too many at once."
"I doubt that will be a problem."
He leaves.
He must have conveyed his instructions at once, because while people are still awkward around her they pointedly try to smile and do not turn away.
imeanforever
...that's not actually that much better, but, okay, hi, random person, she's looking for Maglor?
Yes, definitely, random person can take her to Maglor.
Maglor is downstairs in a spacious hall she hadn't seen. He does not look surprised to see them coming. Or perturbed. He raises an eyebrow as if there is some humor in the situation which no one else can see. "Promise."
"I will. Would you like to see a demonstration or have the principles explained first?"
And he starts singing. It is a song about a bright place far away, and as he sings it the room brightens; it is a song about children, and as he sings she can see them in the center of the room, clinging to each other, bright-eyed, disheveled, giggling; a rainstorm comes and wild howls up around her, real wind, nearly blowing her away, and the children laugh and dance in the rain,which splashes everywhere - she can feel it on her face - though when he stops singing the hall is dry.
"That is a demonstration. Most of my music is for war."
"That is a demonstration. Most of my music is for war."
"The simplest magic song I know makes lights dance in the air. Do you want to try to learn it?"
So he sings it. Lights do, indeed, dance in the air. "You try."
imeanforever
"Um, I might need to hear it a few times to memorize both the sounds you're making the words out of - if those matter? - and the pitches."
"Both of those definitely matter." He sings it again. Again. Again. "I can break it down into pieces for you?"
So he sings a line. "Can you repeat that bit?"
imeanforever
She repeats it. Her voice is not exceptional, but she can match pitches, and having paid sufficient attention to the exact phonemes she can reproduce them exactly.
He nods. "Do that one three times, then the next one three times, and we'll build until you can do the whole thing?"