"-huh! And what's her story?"

"She was Queen of England on old Earth's surface! She sold the city of London to the Echo Bazaar, sinking it into the Undersea, but was betrayed. It never paid what it promised. After many years of struggle, she opened the Avid Horizon and colonized the sky, defeating the hidebound King of Hours and rebuilding London out in Albion, where all her subjects can thrive. And now she weaves time from the Throne of Hours, for the benefit of all."

"Weaves time? That's a new one."

"Oh, yes. Hours are mined by the barrel in the corners of the Reach, and a lot of the work in the city is to support the hour-refining factories. I don't understand the details, but they're concentrated time - the transit relays use them to turn a weeks-long journey through frozen wastes into a couple of hours, something that all engines can tolerate. There are hour-looms that can suspend something in time, or accelerate it. And every spare hour is fed to the Throne of Hours to keep time consistent throughout the empire, since it tends to wobble."

"Huh! We don't have anything like that. Sounds convenient. Except for the wobbliness, I guess."

"I think that one's more of an environmental hazard. Plenty of those to go around. No Hours wherever you're from?"

"Mmn-mmh. Time can flow differently on different planes, that's the closest I've heard - a powerful enough wizard might be able to manipulate time, but I've never heard of it happening, and definitely not mining it."

"From my schoolyard histories it sounds like things were very orderly on old Earth, it's only the Undersea and the sky that have more dangers, more opportunities. Looser laws of nature. I was a babe in the Undersea, never been to old Earth at all, mind."

"I wonder how much your planar cosmology has in common with ours - that sounds like your country started out on your material plane, and went to something like the elemental plane of earth and then something like the elemental plane of air, if they were more habitable than ours. I'd expect the natural laws to be a little strange on other planes."

"I wouldn't know at all, I'm afraid."

"Maybe I'll find a scholar to ask about it, somewhere. It sounds like it'd be interesting to get to your other elemental planes, if you have them and they're safer than ours - ours aren't safe at all, our plane of air is the safest one and doesn't have land or gravity, for the most part, and some of the air isn't breathable. Not to mention the windstorms, or the elementals that live there."

"That sounds like all the stories of travelling the skies I've ever heard. Winds, monsters, loneliness."

"I wouldn't expect to find a human city anywhere in the plane of air, but maybe they're more similar than I thought, otherwise. Do you get monsters here, at all?"

"Not within the city, mostly, hunters and the like prune them out pretty eagerly. Betentacled or beaked or knife-handed wriggling things - all dangerous, but when you shoot something it tends to die. There's sky-beasts, though. Cantankeri, Curators, Scrive-Spinsters. And rogue engines. Sky-mad explorers, pirates and marauders. The bloody Tacketies and Stovepipes shooting at each other."

"I'll definitely have to find someone to ask about all of that. What's the story with the Tacketies and Stovepipes?"

"It's-" He looks around furtively on instinct. "Now, maybe I didn't tell you this, but the Reach is perhaps a bit more independent than the papers would have you believe. The Tacketies want to secede. Or at least come to an understanding with Her Majesty's Government. The Stovepipes are Windward Company engines looking to preserve their investments and power. Scrappy independent prospectors formed into a loose union, fighting off 'tyranny'... It's the stuff of plays, but it's all going to end so badly, I think."

"It usually does, yes. Sometimes it's worth it anyway, I suppose."

"From what I've heard it only ever seems to end in suffering. I was going to move to Port Avon. Or maybe Titania. Or Lustrum. Somehow I'm still here, though. Not enough engines risking the trip for it to be cheap."

"Hm." His expression darkens. "Sounds like something my god would want me to look into, if I can."

"I wish you luck. I'd better get some rest while I can. It was interesting, hearing all about your - world. Even if I'm still not entirely sure I believe it." He sips the last of his tea.

"Thank you for having me," he nods, and makes his goodbyes.

He was planning on spending the afternoon looking for more work, but instead he spends it scouting, getting a feel for the general layout of the city and in particular where the seedier areas are - where he'd expect to find rebels - and where in those areas he'd have the best chances of encountering them.

Sooty, worn-down workers make their way to and from the factories. East-Enders lurk in alleys and side-streets, glaring resentfully at the more prosperous West-Enders. The West-Enders engage in pointed gossip about each other's manners and clothing. Constables with billy clubs throng around the nicer streets and the factories, but are less common elsewhere. There doesn't seem to be much actual poverty, most everyone has food and a roof over their heads, but certainly a sizable poor class. There's a newspaper with copies everywhere describing the Windward Company's recent triumphs. Furtive pamphlets that display the Tacketies' side of things are much harder to find.

Down by the dockyard, a rusty set of engine-sheds with some rough-looking types surreptitiously hanging around it presumably hides some sort of villany. The southern and easternmost bits of the city seem almost abandoned by the authorities. And there seems to be a way down carved into the cliff, there, in the perfect spot to be hidden by a rusting hulk unless you know about it or see it from exactly the right angle.

That path down the cliff face is promising, but he's not prepared to take advantage of it quite yet. First - the next day, in the morning after he's checked with the hospital - he needs to see a clothier. Or two, really, he's going to need to be able to fit in on both sides of the city.

The nicer outfits won't be ready for a few days; he packs his workman's clothes away and spends the rest of the morning and most of the afternoon looking for more odd jobs and seeing any healing clients who don't need spells he doesn't have prepared. He breaks early, takes a nap and has dinner, then changes clothes and goes to stake out the spot he found.

The hospital can connect him with a few incredulous wealthy patrons. They all seem suspicious about possible side-effects for some reason - the doctors' good word mollifies the clients, mostly. There are odd jobs around - mostly more machinery repairs, though none as urgent as the air-cooler. There are preparations for some sort of festival underway - the feast of the Red Saint is in two days, apparently.

The spot he found seems terribly uninteresting... For a while. Under cover of dimming twilight (though the distant stars themselves seem to be dimming, rather tham any of them setting), a girl who can't be more than eight or nine years old clambers up the hidden path, scouts around a bit, then quite purposefully climbs the rusting hulk that is this place's local landmark and lights a lantern with a green stained glass filter.

A minute later, there is the low sound of chugging machinery. A ragged-looking locomotive matching the descriptions of Tackety engines in the newspapers sails out of the clouds and mist, heading for a spot below the cliffs. It vanishes, and the machinery noise soon stops. A few minutes after that, a group in workers' clothes emerges from the hidden path carrying a large box each, then gather up against the rusting hulk and have a discussion. The woman with the floppy black hat seems to be in charge.

He hangs back; he can't hear what they're saying, but he can still get a sense of their mood and what they're doing from his hiding place.