"Dwarves and Men are also mortal, right? Do we have any reason to think we can fix that beyond 'Fëanáro can do most things'?"

"Maybe once the Valar are dead," Cam says, "they can summon things."

He shakes his head.

"Are you going to tell anyone," Maitimo says.

"The last time we had almost exactly this conversation," he says, "was Alqualonde, and I am not sure if I wish I had."

"I am not going to let you tell anyone."

Blink.

"Well I suppose I needn't be in doubt about whether we have you back."

"Thank you for that."

"Please don't kill ten million people at the Enemy's behest because you did the math and it seems worth it."

"Please give me a better alternative."

"I'm trying! You going to have Cam osanwe-proof the room and make it pretty enough I can hold on a while-"

"I haven't, have I? You going to tell Huan -"

"I haven't, have I?"

"...I should have kept my mouth shut," observes Cam.

"No, no, given that you are debating murdering ten million people I'd much rather know about it."

"That's the Maia population, then?"

"I don't think there's a count. It's not much less than that."

"I can't even make a basement dweller of a Maia proper," he sighs. "Their forms sure, not the actual Maia."

"I'm not sure that many of them are people," Maitimo says, "lots of them are very simple and do things like sing a song to a tree over and over. A million certainly."

"The Enemy wants you to do this. I don't think you can be sure that he doesn't have - I don't know - oaths could break when Valinor's destroyed, something like that..."

"Could they? That'd be a dealbreaker. - but it's the sort of thing I could have him swear in advance."

"I don't know if they could. The Enemy wants it, that's all I know, and it's prima facie pretty evil, and, well, people differ in how much mass murder they're willing to commit for the greater good, I'm at my quota."

"I've still never actually killed anyone," Cam says softly. "But I don't value the cleanliness of my hands quite this much."

"Talk to Fëanáro. Maybe there's another way, at a minimum enough people looking at it can make sure it's more careful-"

"Yes," Maitimo says. "Thank you."

"Don't thank me for letting you kill people again."

"If there were some pretext to lure the Maiar off planet, or even some of them, or get them to try summoning in case it's barely possible that the afterlife and the actual production of a daeva in the process are not identical -"

"I'll try to think of something. Fëanáro'll try to think of something. But you're planning to do it anyway?"

"Not right this minute. This deserves at least days of thinking. And I don't know if the Enemy will want to hold out for something less thorough than what I want if I'm going to sell my innocence for it. It is however currently the leading plan."

"I won't do anything that restricts your options in the meantime. How are you planning to keep Maitimo secret for a week?"

"Don't know yet."

"It would have been smart to give me a different body," Maitimo says. "But I think we'll manage. Cam can make me somewhere to stay and I can swear anyone who does somehow notice to secrecy."

"I could dye your hair and - I was going to say change your eye color but Elf biology."

He sort of shudders. "Yes, good idea. Won't be recognized from the back, at least, and I can rebraid it -" he makes no motion to do so.

"Pick a color."

"Black," he says - the vast majority of the Noldor have black hair. "You can fix it later?"