Inconveniently, Vanyel is in Velgarth. Jisa is in Vinyamar, though. 

<Van?>

<Jisa? Is something wrong?: 

<I don't think it's an emergency - yet - so don't come home if you're doing anything important. There are some worrying rumours that could mean there's a mage in Valinor, somehow> 

<How close to where Maitimo is?> 

<...One of the sightings is pretty close. Couple of villages over> She hesitates. <Stef wants to go in person. He'll bring guards, he promises to be careful...> 

<Absolutely do not let Stef go within five hundred miles of Maitimo without - hmm. I really shouldn't come home right now, but - you're Adept-strength>

<We're pretty sure the mage is long gone by now. And it might not be real at all. Just, it'd be extremely worrying if it were, right?>

<It would be very bad to miss, or react too slowly. All right. You go with him. Be very careful, all right. Promise me> 

<I promise. I'll be so incredibly paranoid> 

Sigh. He doesn't like it, but. <Bring a communication-artifact too. Good skill>

Stef swings by Findekáno's office. Gives a quick summary. "It's probably nothing, but Jisa and I are going in. We have shield-talismans that should make us impossible to find with osanwë and we'll both put those on before we get into his range. And we're, er, borrowing some Companions." It's almost unheard of for a Companion to let anyone but their Herald ride them, but Treven's Eren ferries Jisa around often enough, and Dara was willing to lend Rolan for this purpose. 

Maitimo is persuaded by his staff to attend a concert. "If you were not evil," Iverindo says to him, " and you were working this obsessively while clearly still - processing some things from your captivity - we would be persuading you to attend a concert for your own good, in the expectation that in the long run it'd be better for you. So it seems like you ought to do it even if you're evil, for the same reasons."

"That seems like a good argument for doing it, but not for persuading me to do it!!! ... I really could use a few days off, though."

He has been tempted to write a letter to his parents, to be found in the case of his death, but this is a stupid thing to be tempted to do and should not be so tempting. Instead he asks his mother for his favorite dinner and goes to attend the concert.

They Gate to Tol Eréssea before the sun is quite up, and then - peel away under illusion, get on a boat that no one but Stef's people should know about, ride across the strait and land a ways off from Alqualondë. 

Companions are fast. It's 700 miles, but they can cover that in just over twelve hours. Jisa illusions them when they go near actual towns, but doesn't bother when they're in stretches of wilderness in between. They keep an eye out for dinosaurs but running into some would be barely even an inconvenience, given Jisa's presence. 

"Rolan?" Stef shouts in his ear once he thinks they're within range. "Get a read on Maitimo, please." 

Listening to a concert. Watching through peoples' eyes, in his village and all the neighboring ones; there's someone gardening, there's someone stargazing, there's someone doing a sketch for a construction project by the light of a flickering lantern, there's someone reading a book.

They activate their amulets against osanwë. They should also be just about impossible to find with magic or Velgarth Thoughtsensing, just in case that's a thing now. For the last hour of their gallop, Jisa switches to illusions all the time even between peopled areas.

They approach the town. Pause. Jisa gets out her scrying-artifact and checks again, as she did before their departure, at which point everything looked utterly normal. Unsurprisingly; if there really is a mage, he's moved on by now. They can't scry an entire continent.

How do things look now? 

It's a little village in a river valley with an adorable stone dam, at the base of some foothills. People are growing bamboo and rice and bananas. Maitimo is sixty miles south of here. The person who thought they saw something lives in a tall tower with stained glass windows.

Well, they can't go all the way in under illusion, or the poor person they're asking questions is going to be so baffled, and they've deliberately made it impossible to use osanwë. 

"Rolan?" he whispers. "What's Maitimo up to right now?" Maitimo should not have any way of having the faintest idea that they're here, but, paranoia. "I want you to keep a really close watch from now onward. Whose eyes is he looking through - can any of those people see that path...?" 

Maitimo is bouncing around between people in various other cities and, within this one, the person they've come here to talk to, a kid sitting up on a hill looking out at the village, and some lovers stargazing, who he might not be watching because of anything informative out of their perspective; they're just staring at the stars. 

"Jisa, can we put her behind an osanwë barrier?" Stef hisses to her. 

"Yes, but - shouldn't do it yet, he's watching this place - why is he watching this place..." 

"I am very suspicious, he's not even supposed to have range with people here I thought. But - well, I can't tell what he's doing, yet, and she's our best lead to finding out." 

Jisa grits her teeth. "Rolan can read her thoughts from here. Maybe we can find out without talking to anyone. Rolan?" 

She is complaining over osanwë to her husband about the weather, and mending a torn shirt, and singing.