LABYRINTH ↬ leo valdez x reader, book three

7. LINE WITHOUT A HOOK

"Well, Leo Valdez?" Apollo folded his arms. His eyes glowed with golden light. Leo looked at me with worry and started to fidget with his hands. Whatever he was organising, he wasn't sure about me hearing it. However, I think he knew what the risk would be if he said the wrong thing, let alone made me leave him to face the god alone.
"Let us bargain, then. What can you offer that would convince me to help you rather than kill you?"

"A bargain." Leo's fingers twitched. "Yeah. Absolutely."
He started pulling things out of the pockets of his magic tool belt – copper wire, some bolts, a brass funnel.

"So the thing is," Leo said as his hands twisted wire, "Zeus is already P.O.'ed at you, right? If you help us defeat Gaia, you could make it up to him."
Apollo wrinkled his nose. "I suppose that's possible. But it would be easier to smite you."

"What kind of ballad would that make?" Leo's hands worked furiously, attaching levers, fastening the metal funnel to an old gear shaft. "You're the god of music, right? Would you listen to a song called "Apollo Smites a Runty Little Demigod"? I wouldn't. But "Apollo Defeats the Earth Mother and Saves the Freaking Universe" ... that sounds like a Billboard chart-topper!"

Apollo gazed into the air, as if envisioning his name on a marquee. "What do you want exactly? And what do I get out of it?"
"First thing I need: advice." Leo strung some wires across the mouth of the funnel. "I want to know if a plan of mine will work." He turned to me. He pondered for a while.

"Leo, you can't leave me in the dark on this."
"You're gonna hate me." He took a step closer and placed his arms on mine. "You don't know the things I know."
"I do!" I yelped. "I know that you've been talking to Nike secretly, I've been in the sickbay."
"You have to trust me."
"I do trust you. You don't trust me."

His hands find my face. "If I tell you, promise you won't hate me."
"You're telling me either way."

I wished on everything he hadn't. To storm or fire the world must fall. Leo was going to sacrifice himself and use the physician's cure to come back, save Calypso, and return to us.
"You're crazy. You can't just..." I protested, a tear falling down my cheek. My very being couldn't imagine not having Leo around after so many days of his company. "What if it doesn't work?"

"Y/N L/N, I suggest you hear your lover out."
I sniffled. "He's not—"
"Demigod, I will give you this advice for free. You might be able to defeat Gaia in the way you describe, similar to the way Ouranos was defeated aeons ago. However, any mortal close by would be utterly ..." Apollo's voice faltered. "What is that you have made?"

I looked down at the contraption in Leo's hands. Layers of copper wires, like multiple sets of guitar strings, crisscrossed inside the funnel. Rows of striking pins were controlled by levers on the outside of the cone, which was fixed to a square metal base with a bunch of crank handles.

"Oh, this ... ?" The thing looked like a music box fused with an old-fashioned phonograph, but what was it?

Artemis had told him to make a deal with Apollo.

"Um, well," Leo said, "this is quite simply the most amazing instrument ever!"
"How does it work?" asked the god.
He turned the crank handles. A few clear tones rang out – metallic yet warm. I recognised it very vaguely. It was similar to something from Ogygia. When she sang it, it was gentle. But, through the strings of the brass cone, the tune sounded even sadder, like a machine with a broken heart – the way Festus might sound if he could sing.

Apollo stared in awe at the instrument. "I must have it. What is it called? What do you want for it?"
"This is the Valdezinator, of course!' He puffed out his chest. "It works by, um, translating your feelings into music as you manipulate the gears. It's really meant for me, a child of Hephaestus, to use, though. I don't know if you could –"