"Skillets are tasty! The whole point is for you to pick, so jazz it is. As it happens I also prefer jazz to The Fall of Gold. I maybe would have liked Beethoven just for the - sheer effort of it, the grandeur I guess, but jazz is good too. They call themselves the Rocky Wind."

Thorn hesitates, then nods. "Let's do jazz then." 

"Jazz it is. It's at 7. I'll need to go for tickets real quick. Then the engine?"

"Sounds good to me. I'll need to hit the bank to withdraw funds, so we can meet up back at the engine lot?" 

"Yep! We have a few minutes to kill before our food gets here though."

"We do," says Thorn. "Sorry, I'm used to being rushed off my feet by everything. But I can just... stay here with you." 

She smiles sappily. "You're worth paying attention to, I should do more of it. I'd like to hear your thoughts on The Fall of Gold - why's it not to your taste?"

"I haven't actually seen it, mind, but it sounds very... Establishment? It's about how the rich have their own problems, and can be good people struggling with things, and that just sort of... It's not what I want to see. Even if I'm going to end up rich sooner or later with the OTC. It's a little too real?"

"I thought I might actually learn something." She flushes a bit. "I'm really not used to the ways in which I'm wealthy. But I can see how that might not be exactly your cup of tea."

"Yeah, hits a little close, is all. Sounded kind of pro-Windward too." Shrug.

"But you told me anyway just in case. Thank you. I'm glad we're going to Tackety jazz though."

"Me too. Music is like, a universal human thing, isn't it? I remember reading that even ancient cultures had singing and music."

"Yeah, it's universal. I don't think I've ever seen a  culture without some kind of music. And it's a real joy to be able to listen to the folk songs of other places and times. There's recorded music from ancient Sumeria that we can still play today, though I don't personally know anyone who knows it. It's a deeper kind of magic, I think."

"I tried to learn the piano once. Didn't get very far. Maybe I should try again."

"Can't be worse than my singing," she says. "We can be a terrible, terrible duet." 

She snickers. "Piano sounds kind of heavy, though. Maybe a trombone, or lyre, or something. Accordion? Those are really goofy, it'd suit me."

"I can just imagine you on a trombone. Stuffing it into your luggage. 'Hey, it looks like someone's smuggling a trombone!' Maybe something more compact. Like a bugle. Or an accordion if you want to be goofy."

"Goofy is fun but inferior to maybe actually producing good music. Maybe a clarinet or something?"

"A clarinet could work. Or even just a guitar. It'd be slightly large, but it's a traveler's instrument." 

"Does your music friend have some of these instruments? I could let him yell at me about it and pick the one I'm least bad at."

"He definitely has a few! I'm under the impression he's tried basically everything once, and that must include instruments, so I expect he has something kicking around."

"I wonder if I could try weird things like bagpipes or if that would be too disrespectful-"

Their food arrives.

"Ooh! Thank you. But yeah, guitar sounds nice."

"Lenora the bagpiper. Seems a bit Scottish for me."

She digs into her skillet.

Nom nom nom.

"It's mostly Britons, as far as London's fair citizens go. Only London was stolen away into the Neath, after all, not... Uh, Glasgow? Is that a Scottish city? I don't know. So we have a few Scots and Welsh and Irishmen here and there, or people with that ancestry anyway, but hardly any at all on the grand scale of things."

She nods along. "Makes sense. And now there are more alien people yet, like the Devils. I've rather wanted to get to know one, but the approach seems... hazardous."

"I've worked with a Devil before. He was quiet, did the work, ignored the abuse, jumped ship after payday after a while. They're not... That bad, I think. They just don't care about things in the same way humans do. They keep to their deals, mostly, I think because having a reputation to keep to their deals is valuable to them more than because of some kind of innate nature. At least, these days. There's an office building that has Devils somewhere in New Winchester, I think?"