"And you didn't, like, follow up on that?"

"...I can't tell when a Timothy is lying, wouldn't have done any good to ask him. I did get some books but, uh, the ones written while he's still alive are all very complimentary -"

"- aren't you in fact sleeping with him -"

"- I mean, yes, Findekáno's the person who'd have license to mind and didn't and he's outrageously hot and trying very very hard to make up for something and they kind of need us around, you know, they get too - Feanorian - otherwise -"

"Meaning -"

"Uh, single-minded, righteous, paranoid, attracted to a destructive kind of martyrdom - Timothy'll probably be okay, I think Cam can mostly handle him. Matirin has too many limbs for me to hazard a guess, but the Elf ones need us."

"So you just decided not to care if your boyfriend -"

"He is not my boyfriend - I'm going to find myself a human one for that, Elves're too Elfy - but yes, I decided not to go around doing research Findekáno did not seem to especially want done so I could decide whether I was morally licensed to hook up with hot Elf Timothy in peak charming form. And I didn't know that but now that I heard it it makes sense of some other things."

Theodore stomps off upstairs.

Mirelótë and Rúmil and small Bella who is calling herself Pocket are having a tea party with Midnight in his room. Zag is sipping tea from a saucer.

He doesn't knock. "Hi," he says to Midnight. "And fuck you."

" - can this wait."

"Sorry for ruining your tea party Pocket but. Uh. No."

"- I should have asked 'is this happening now because there is something time-sensitive to which it is relevant or is it happening now because you just found out and have no impulse control -"

"If I didn't have impulse control my opening would have been a long string of spells -"

"I am kind of skeptical you have enough information to warrant that, which is not to say it isn't warranted -"

"I can kind of see why that moon cop lady lost it at a you when you're being obstructionist you are really fucking punchable about it. - are the rest of us fucked up too?"

"If I were, would you be?"

"Point."

"Um, what's going on."

"Age-inappropriate. Fix it," he says to Midnight.

"You might be overestimating me."

"Theodore is angry at Midnight about something Maitimos from his sort of Arda do," Mirelótë tells Pocket.

"If he does bad things why are we having our tea party here."

"He won't do anything to you and he has stopped doing the other thing, and it wouldn't make much sense to just avoid him forever, that wouldn't make him want to behave nicely."