"She’s got a bit of a cough in the middle C," Elias murmured, "but the soul is still there."

The man who arrived, a soft-spoken technician named Elias, didn't just look at the price tag. He ran a calloused thumb over the ivory keys, listening to the resonance of the soundboard like a doctor checking a heartbeat.

"They need a voice," Elias said, tightening a strap. "And this one has a lot of stories left to tell."

As Elias began the delicate process of dismantling the legs and prepping the lyre for transport, he told Arthur where the piano was headed. It wasn't going to a warehouse or a landfill. It had been commissioned by a youth center in Bristol that had recently lost its instruments in a flood.