I LOVED this story. The 'out-tricking* the trickster' trope is probably my favourite storyline - probably stemming from watching way too much Bugs Bunny and Wile E Coyote as a kid. (Okay, the former is not exactly the same thing, but related, I think.)
Spoiler Alert!
The ending made me a little sad, though. While I think it's good to thwart the trickster and teach him (are there female tricksters?) his place, I think the world needs its tricksters and they shouldn't be permanently stopped, just kept within reasonable limits.
End of spoiler
I laughed out loud when Ann said, "I sometimes wonder if the preponderance of violins and guitars in 'Musical Deal With the Devil' stories doesn't come from old religious ideas about music and about particular instruments. Then again, maybe I'm just not familiar with the extensive literature of, say, supernatural clarinet stories."
It also got me to thinking. I suspect it has more to do with the (probable) longer history of stringed instruments, if only because they're so much easier to make. Anyone can stretch some strings across a hole, however inexpertly, but it's much more exacting to hollow out a tube and make it a particular length.
(Yes, I know that making a good stringed instrument is just as exacting, if not more, but a quick-and-dirty one is far easier than an equivalent wind instrument with more than one note.)
It wouldn't surprise me if the religious ideas stemmed from the same thing: the church disapproved of instruments that anybody could play (and therefore they couldn't control) and declared them suspect/pernicious/evil. And maybe harps are the instruments of angels because they're harder to play.
And finally: the reading. I think Elizabeth Green Musselman has edged into the position of my favourite Escape Artists reader, which is saying a lot, considering the likes of M. K. Hobson, Alasdair Stuart, Rachel Swirsky, Ann Leckie and more. This is the first EA story that I'm likely to listen to again, not for the story but for the educational opportunities in listening to and analyzing the narration.
*but not tricking out