"How big an island would we have to leave him on not to eventually cause the captivity problem?" Vanyel says quietly. "Obviously Tol Eréssea is big enough - there must be other islands, if none are uninhabited we could persuade everyone to move off one..." 

"- wonder if that's what he was going for. It puts us in a really difficult situation and one he might hope we'll fight over. Tol Eressëa's big enough you'd need years to have a problem. I don't think there are any other islands that big but we haven't scouted the whole world, there might be."

"Honestly I think the main thing he would've been going for was killing my lifebonded. Which I'm sure he predicted would result in me storming out there and murdering him–" Vanyel looks like he might be angry enough to consider it anyway, actually, "and - that would've served his goals, too, imagine the diplomatic consequences." 

Sigh "We should wait to hear what the Valar have to say. How much proof they want. Stef and Jisa and even the Companions could testify; I don't think the Valar are likely to leak that to Maitimo." Pause. "–Gods, where's Fëanáro right now? If it'd been him and Nerdanel, they'd both be dead. Realistically I can't persuade Maitimo's mother to part ways with him, but Fëanáro shouldn't ever be on the same landmass, at this point. That was an incredible feat of planning and execution and we're not certain he doesn't have two plans like that." 

(Leareth would be proud, Vanyel finds himself thinking, unbidden. He doesn't glance at Telumë.) 

"...I know this won't happen. The Noldor wouldn't allow it and I won't be the one to do it unilaterally. But - I'm starting to think that he's too dangerous to leave alive. That it'd be a lot simpler if we executed him for this and collected him from Mandos after the war. I know that'd be crossing all sorts of lines. Destroying a lot of trust. But still."  

"I - understand why in a lot of ways it would be the safest option. I think he knows that, too, he kept saying he expected you'd do it once you had stopped feeling good about yourselves by pretending there were alternatives." That 'you' is more directed at Telumë than Vanyel but he's not looking at Telumë either. "It's - it's not what we do. I am not sure you could even get the Valar to make sense of it....if killing people is wrong such that they have the authority to punish it, then it's wrong such that they shouldn't do it - does Fëanáro know, does he believe us..."

“We are not going to do that,” Telumë says quietly. “At worst there are islands on Velgarth...he could be put there with other Quendi...”

“I haven’t spoken to Fëanáro yet - is he here in Vinyamar...?”

"He's in an undisclosed location but I think one in range of here."

Mindspeech requires knowing at least a direction but osanwe doesn’t. Fëanáro?

Vanyel. Slightly irritated; he'd been in the middle of something.

I’m very sorry to interrupt. We need to meet and talk. Maitimo got past our precautions, nearly killed Stef and my daughter, did kill some innocent people. We have pretty conclusive proof it was him. Can you come to Vinyamar, or give me a location to meet you, so we can talk behind a privacy-barrier?

I can come to Vinyamar. How did he possibly - tell me later.

"We're going to talk to him soon." Vanyel heads to Fëanáro's office, dragging a slightly-reluctant but resigned Telumë with him. He paces. 

It takes him about an hour to get back to Vinyamar from the site he's been working at. He has chalk dust on the sleeves of his robes and looks like he hasn't been sleeping much. He blinks at Telumë. "Who's this -"

“Oh, right, have you not met in person? This is Telumë.”

Telumë meets his eyes, with effort, nods to him.

" - huh," he says neutrally. "All right, what happened -"

Vanyel explains. 

“...And they suspected a trap and were - within Thoughtsensing range," he finishes, eliding the part where a Groveborn had already been reading Maitimo for hours, "so - we saw him talk to some birds. Knock over a lantern, start a fire, boom, easy. Jisa and Stef started running as soon as it happened, obviously, that's - the only reason they got out. Jisa acted fast and cleverly and she saved the majority of the village too, redirected the water, but - we're still waiting on a final death count." He bows his head. "Rest would've been by osanwë. Clearly he's got ways of getting to 'know' people he shouldn't, getting range he shouldn't have. Not everyone in Valinor knows he's evil. He could've divvied it up into a number of steps that all made sense individually, gotten the explosives there. The exact details of that are pending Iverindo's investigation." 

"Huh. Have we asked him about this -"

"Well, I haven't. Since I was in Velgarth until a couple of hours ago when I heard. Stef and Jisa are busy getting distance between them as fast as they can and they're out of osanwë range now. His staff know, and I will have to trust them to handle it as they see fit until I can reach him." Frustrated glance at Telumë. "The fact that we promised him no Truth Spells is very limiting. Anyway. The Valar have also been alerted and for all I know they're talking to him right now." 

"I am not very sure how the Valar will see it. They'll be furious - there's never been deliberate violence in Valinor -"

"Yes, I'm aware." Vanyel makes a slightly irritated face. "I - might've preferred not to tell them immediately, given that we can't predict their reaction here. But we had a village of innocent people in danger, and it was too risky for my daughter to stay and help, I don't blame Iverindo for escalating it right away." 

"I can't imagine it'd have been possible to keep from them for long anyway. Were we - trying to avoid Maitimo talking to them, are there routes for him to do damage there -"

Vanyel glances at Telumë. 

Telumë takes a breath, thin shoulders rising and falling. "I had recommended it. The Valar are - they are not stupid, exactly, but I think they are gullible, and they - react clumsily. He might seed false or misleading information with them, spook them into doing something that would be very costly to us. I have no idea of the specifics but it was a possible threat I noticed." 

"Ugh. I guess we should be ready to move the mathematicians to Velgarth, if we have to, that seems like the most important thing they could potentially interfere with."