Eventually more people come back. "Papers to write?"

"I thought you wouldn't let us publish them."

"I won't."

"Quenya is an intentional language! They want it to sound pretty so they have public debates about the merits of sound shifts. It's adorable."

"I like languages that don't do that also. They're pretty the way a forest is pretty instead of pretty the way a garden is pretty but they're still pretty."

"Cool! Can I introduce you to some more people so you can start planning the Bella rescue mission?"

"I'm not sure who all should have magic yet."

"It makes sense to be cautious about that. Maybe you can describe for us all the things you're worried about so that we can make sure the magic program has appropriate safety precautions."

Can you teach someone magic without them being able to figure out how to teach anyone else?

I don't think so. It might take them longer but if you know how to cast a spell you could figure out how to teach someone to cast it. Without osanwë it might be a lot harder but I don't think it'd be impossible.

Well, there goes that idea. Is there magic that could stop them from doing it?

You could do an action block with subtle arts.

But nothing before we get Bella?

Maybe you could invent a spell that did an action block but I don't really know how.

Rats.

Blues are watching this exchange interestedly. 

"No, he means actual trees, his world does not have a sun and is lit by giant trees," he is telling someone earnestly in the corner.

"- trees? - never mind, later - uh - anyway anyone who learns magic could figure out how to teach it and then someone could figure out how to for instance put out the sun. But the figuring out how to teach it might take long enough that if you found a boring thirty-nine-year-old to do the rescue mission it'd be safe, and more options open up when Bella is here."

"Having only a handful of people who know how to do magic puts us at risk of something happening to them, at fairly extraordinary cost to the world. There are already weapons that could, while they wouldn't affect the sun, destroy all life on this world, and we're already pretty accustomed to taking risks like that appropriately seriously."

Without osanwë would it be obvious by looking or listening if someone was teaching someone else magic?

...yeah, I think so, you'd have to show them spellcharts and things.

"If your candidates will put up with surveillance it can be bottlenecked that way."

"You want to watch the people who are learning magic to make sure they're not trying to do things it isn't safe for them to try?" he asks Fëanáro.

"I just don't want bad people getting it and your world has lots of them."

"They really really don't, it's not just that we have a larger population," he says when Aitim looks tempted to object to this.