"We have never observed that dramatic and long-term a mismatch."

"Who is in all the other rooms?"

"Bar won't say if they're occupied at all. Miranda knocked on a bunch and got no answers."

"I will be more careful."

"And maybe faster. Between coming down or finding Cam for food and people usually being in the bar, you can't get too far off."

"We can stop doing that."

"I suppose you could stockpile if you so chose, yes. You'd still sync up whenever someone sent you a message."

"True." Sigh.

"I don't suppose it would help at all to put him back in your world while you think."

"He might want me to step in while he thinks, once I offer. But I don't think losing him would help me at all."

"Would you if he asks?"

"Of course."

"Any other insights from the trip to Godspring?"

"I don't want anyone else."

"Not tempted to go bump into a redmage and squirrel him away?"

"Not at all. Findekáno is brilliant and sensible and interesting and I want him magically in love with me but I don't want anyone else."

"This is a new insight?"

"Not really, just brought into focus. If I thought there could be anyone else I'd have let him go in the first place."

Nod.

"Thank you for visiting."

"Anytime."

And she leaves him be.

He sings to himself for a couple hours. 

He calls Findekáno in. Lie down. Do not make any voluntary movements, including speaking. Don't osanwë anybody other than me. Let me read your mind.

He spends a moment making sure that he is properly complying. Muscle by muscle, relaxed and then detached from his control. No voluntary movements. He wonders what Maitimo wants. He decides not to worry about it. He wonders what Ambela said. Maybe someone else found out? Maybe there's some new magic -

- no point in guessing -

- he thinks about Maitimo, because Maitimo usually likes that. Maitimo is trembling. Maitimo is waiting - maybe for some cue from Findekáno, maybe for something else - he can't check now if they're alone, though he can't hear another set of breathing - and someone could always come in - 

Remember the first time I asked this of you?

He did. At first he had not regarded this sort of thing as a conscionable order; but there was not really any debating that 'do not attempt to hurt the guards who have been ordered to restrain you' was a conscionable order, and then Maitimo could get here anyway, and it had not taken him too long to realize that Maitimo was not just testing the limits of his power but actually wanted this reliably, and then he'd been willing enough to leave other people out of it. By now the oath considered this order a perfectly enforceable one.