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Leo Valdez is not a particularly talented singer. He couldn’t carry a tune, hold a note, or play a real instrument. His mother, an acolyte of Apollo, bemoans his lack of musical talent from the day he is born wailing. As the years pass, she finds his hands burned more than callused from the lyre, and it disappoints her so much that Leo’s inclined to do something about it. Practice is not something that particularly appeals to him: he has never been a particularly patient person.
He builds the music box when he’s only thirteen years old. It’s not much of a music box—more like a strange hybrid of music box and phonograph—but it’s beautiful anyway. Best of all, he can play it without causing anyone serious pain. Leo is the only one who can manipulate layers of copper wire, like multiple sets of guitar strings, crisscrossed inside a funnel. On the outside of the cone, levers control rolls of striking pins, which are fixed to the square metal base with crack handles. It doesn’t look like much, but it creates music more incredible than anything his mother has heard before.
Leo doesn’t name the instrument, because names have power.
Still, maybe it’s true that his invention does its job a little too well. Nothing can resist his music: not enemies, not friends, not beasts. He plays in the woods while working and a horde of animals gathers at his back, waiting for the next song. It’s off-putting, and will not last long. His hands, fire soaked from forges, clutch the instrument a little too tightly when he thinks about the god of music’s reaction to it.
Apollo hasn’t said anything yet, but Leo knows it’s a matter of when, not if. He tells his mother it’s good for her to stay out of town, hoping she won’t be blamed for his mistake. No, it’s never going to be a mistake for Leo to build something.
The mistake is thinking he can do it better than a god.
A few nights after his mother’s departure, Apollo visits him in a dream. The god of music is almost painful to look at, cloaked in the brightness of the sun and surrounded by the kind of music mortals can only imagine. They are standing together in a wide grass field, bare as far as the eye can see. Leo is dressed in his regular clothing and holds his instrument in his hand.
“Your creation,” Apollo says, and for a moment Leo can convince himself that the tone is friendly instead of demanding. “It makes incredibly beautiful music. What is it called?”
“It does not have a name, my lord,” says Leo, trying to remain subservient when he wants to run. “That would be undue power.”
“Perhaps,” muses Apollo. “But it cannot be replicated without a name to call it by.” He stretches his hand out to Leo, fiery eyes as imploring as they are demanding. “Give me your instrument. I am the god of music, and it is my divine right to master it.”
He doesn’t think, and maybe that’s his problem. But he’s seen his mother waste her life away for Apollo, seen beggars in the streets turn emaciated and poor after repeated prayers to gods that won’t answer, seen his best friend struck down by Zeus before the young man turned eighteen.
“No,” says Leo. The gods cannot take more from me than they already have, he thinks.
Apollo’s expression turns downright hostile, arms rising as he flickers with discontent. Even in the dream, Leo has to squint at his figure—as if the god has bypassed merely commanding the sun and turned into it himself. He clutches his instrument to his chest as tightly as he dares.
“I could kill you where you stand,” warns Apollo. “It is possible in dreams.”
“Go ahead, my lord,” says Leo, growing comfortable in his defiance. “If you kill me, there will be no one to teach you how to play my instrument. What would the world think if the music god spent eternity knowing how to play all songs but one?”
“You are impertinent,” Apollo tells him. “You will live to regret this.”
Leo is young when he refuses to bend. He has not yet realized that there are things he wants more than his own life. He is brash and proud and thinks he can stand up to a god. The instrument is tucked securely into his pocket, doomed to last forever without a name. He looks at the god in the eye despite the flashes of white light and whispers.
“Do your worst,” says Leo Valdez.
(A word of advice: do not challenge the gods.)
Years later, when he is a little older and doesn’t trot his music out as much as he used to, he meets a girl in a clearing. She has a voice clearer than anything he could hope to manufacture, and her dark eyes hold a permanent glint of trouble. He doesn’t fall in love with her then, but he sits to her under the shade of the trees and talks to her until he can’t imagine leaving.
Her name is Piper. It suits her wonderfully.
They have a whirlwind courtship that ends in marriage, and Leo cannot remember being happier than he is by her side. She is fearless and brilliant and creative and almost as stupidly reckless as he is. When he tells her of his encounter with the god Apollo, she is taken aback for only a moment before laughing.
“Play me another song,” she says breathlessly. “Play me the song about how you bested a god.”
(Bested is a strong word, especially at this point in the story.)
(In the skies, Apollo is laughing.)
At their wedding, Piper is no different. She is resplendent in a long dress of white and gold and dances until blisters burn her feet and she has to hand her sandals off to Leo. He watches her spin across the floor with a look of pure contentment, and laughs giddily when she pulls him in for another waltz. They are too happy and too young not to realize that there is always a catch.
“Your happiness will not last,” warns Piper’s grandfather; a clever man named Thomas with partial gifts of prophecy. His words make Leo’s laughter stick and clog his throat, breathing in memories of a grassy plain and copper scars on his burned hands.
“We are too strong to suffer,” Piper assures him. “We are gods-blessed and happily married younger than most people meet their soulmates. I dare Apollo to try anything.”
(Another word of advice: do not dare the gods. They take it as a challenge.)
Mere months into their marriage, Piper leaves to walk through the woods. Her feet are sore and stained from dancing, so she lurches barefoot through tall grasses and dewy meadows. It is all too similar to the dreamscape her husband doomed them in, and all too controlled by the same god. A snake emerges from the bushes and bites her ankle, killing her instantly.
Too much of this story is spent talking about the will of the gods and not enough is spent on the subject of Piper McLean. She holds equal amounts of recklessness and resolve, and immediately recognizes her untimely death as the fault of a deity. They drag her to the Underworld kicking and screaming, and she gambles years of life with Persephone at the table of Hades. Pushing pomegranate seeds back and forth on a hardwood table, Piper negotiates years back on earth as she presses the subject of Apollo’s crimes against the dead. She holds her own before her husband even approaches the gates.
“You cannot fight the will of the gods,” Persephone warns.
“The gods haven’t met my will,” says Piper dismissively, and promptly wins herself another six years.
(Even Apollo didn’t see this coming. He can do nothing but sit on his throne in Olympus and waits for the next move. His hands play a quiet tune on his lyre. An immortal has endless time.)
On earth, Leo despairs at the loss of his wife like a theft of his own soul. He yells apologies into the sky, calling on Hera and Aphrodite to bring his wife back. He waters the grass beneath him with his tears of regret and anger, and almost gives up his stupid, silly instrument. He will surrender his dignity to Apollo if he gets his wife back.
But… but something makes Leo reconsider. Going to Apollo is not a guarantee—he is not the god of the dead. And without recompense, Piper will be gone for nothing. For the first time in years, Leo plays his creation. He lets his sorrow, his regret, his profound and utter despair ring around him, and captivates all life on earth with the song.
For hours, days, weeks, all of the world grieves for Piper exactly as he does. Leo does not sleep, he does not eat, he simply counts the hours until he will be with his wife again. Animals drop their hunting patterns to follow him, and the activity in nearby towns slows to an absolute stop. It is as though he has put the whole world on pause. Even on Olympus, Aphrodite is moved to tears in her golden throne.
When Leo finally, painstakingly crashes (not to death but to dreaded nightmares), he awakens in the court of the love goddess herself. His hands shake and turn up empty. Predictably, he does not enjoy godly interference in his dreams. He looks up at the face of love herself and sees only his dead wife staring back at him.
“Go to the Underworld,” Aphrodite tells him. “Apollo may not be the god of death, but Hades is. His wife has lost a rather awful bet to yours, and you may be able to push your advantage. Go to the Underworld, Leo Valdez. Help her escape.”
Leo’s throat is sandpaper dry and he can barely croak out the words. “Thank you, great goddess,” he manages, because he has finally learned to be humble. He has finally learned that there are greater things than his own pride—but he shouldn’t have had to find out like this. It is far too cruel.
When he wakes, he sets forth to the Underworld. The sounds of his still-unnamed instrument echo through the woods, daring any to challenge him. Leo has heard stories of the music that leads damned souls into the next realm, but he’s never thought he would have to play it. Still, he approaches the gates to the palace of Hades without interference. His enemies simply drop away before they can raise a hand to him. As far as gifts go, it’s not an awful one.
(Apollo is fuming. “How dare you interfere?” he demands of Aphrodite, tearing the goddess away from her spot at the scrying bowl. He wants to blast a hole through her chest but knows she could destroy him just as easily. Rage is all he allows himself.
“It’s love, darling,” says Aphrodite, as if that explains everything. In a convoluted way, it does. She makes him leave her alone so she can track Leo’s journey, and Apollo huffs his way back to the throne room.)
Leo throws open the doors of death with an uncharacteristic grin and finds the hazy ghost of his wife waiting for him on the other side.
“Took you long enough,” she grumbles, but the smile on her face is too overpowering for any real malice. Leo wants to sweep her into his arms and leave the Underworld as quickly as possible, but the god of death stands right behind Piper. He flinches, prepared for another battle.
“Your wife has done what not many mortal spirits can,” intones Hades. “She has successfully negotiated a new life for herself in the world above. I wonder what sort of life it would be for her if I incinerated you for invading my territory.”
Piper opens her mouth to snap something dangerous at Hades, but Leo is faster. He lifts his contraption once again and plays a song sorrowful enough to move the god of the dead. When he’s finished, he swears he can see tears building in the dark eyes of his adversary. Leo waits with bated breath, and the translucent form of Piper flickers at his side. Pins in his instrument pop out and spill on the stone floor, but he doesn’t bother picking them up.
“You can take Piper with you to the mortal world,” concedes Hades. “She has won a long and fulfilling life, and I suppose you are too entertaining to murder outright.”
All the tension goes out of Piper’s ghostly form, but Leo doesn’t dare exhale.
“What’s the catch?” he asks.
Hades laughs. “You have gotten better at dealing with gods.”
(He has lived to regret the first mistake he made. He has decided not to trust the gods.)
“Your last tense will be one of faith,” says Hades. “You can take her with you under one condition: she will follow behind you while you walk out of the caves of the Underworld. If you look at her before you are in the light, you will lose her forever.”
It’s a test of patience, and Leo’s heart turns to cold lead in his chest.
“We can do this,” Piper tells him, and he is so relieved to hear her voice again he could nearly cry. “This is nothing compared to everything else we’ve done.”
“Of course,” Leo tells her. He would’ve squeezed her hand to enunciate it, but she is still a ghost, and he is so painfully mortal. He inhales and turns to Hades. “I accept your terms.”
Hades nods, and the doors of the Underworld are open again. Leo swears he met Piper at the exit, but now they seem painfully far away. He begins walking towards them, playing a short ditty on his cursed instrument to cheer them up. He makes it five, ten, twenty paces before realizing he cannot hear Piper’s footsteps anymore.
The music slows to a stop.
He cannot hear her footsteps, not even in the dread silence of hell.
I have to trust she is behind me, Leo thinks. Involuntarily, every time he’s learned not to trust the word of the gods speeds behind the backs of his eyelids. He sees his mother again, wasting away at the church of Apollo before dying entirely. He sees Jason struck down by his own father, he sees those promised wealth fade away to nothing, he sees the damned souls in the Underworld that weren’t even given the chance to bargain for freedom. No, he cannot hear Piper’s footsteps behind them. It must be a clever trick. Apollo is laughing at him.
(Apollo is not.)
Leo has his hand on the door handle when he cannot stand it anymore. He will not be made a fool again, especially not in the eyes of Olympus. He steels himself for treachery and turns to look behind him, expecting nothing.
“Farewell,” says Piper’s ghost. She had been walking behind him, insubstantial enough that her feet made no sound. Her ghostly hand stretches towards him—one final act of love—before fading away in the wind. A scream rises and stills in Leo’s throat, and he lunges for her.
In doing so, he drops his unnamed instrument to the ground and crushes it completely. He might’ve gotten away with his impertinence if he hadn’t, but with the destruction of his only bargaining chip comes the realization that living souls are not supposed to stay in the land of the dead. Apparitions grab his shoulders and force him through the doors. He kicks and screams like Piper did when they dragged her to her doom, only he has no path to fight back.
When he reaches home, it is all he can do to stay sane.
(In Olympus, Aphrodite’s scrying bowl is a mess on the floor. Apollo stares into the wrecked marble shards of it and considers that he’s gone a little too far.)
He ends up visiting Leo Valdez in the form of a mortal man, knocking at the front of his house. Leo opens reluctantly, revealing his red eyes and scruffy chin. Apollo remembers the boy as a tightly wound coil of energy, but the man in front of him looks broken.
“Apollo,” says Leo. “It’s been a while.”
The sun god follows him into his house, noting the general disrepair and disaster of everywhere but the workspace. On the desk of the musician (who was an inventor first) lies a carefully crafted set of wooden cylinders, held together with a binding strip of metal.
“I was going to offer them to you as penance,” says Leo. He no longer sounds defiant or reckless, just dejected. “They’re called pipes. An instrument I hope befits the music god.” His tone falls flat and empty. Apollo thinks Piper and pipes. The connection isn’t particularly difficult.
For the first time in his very long life, Apollo feels guilty.
“You do not want to give these to me either,” he says. “What is it you actually want?”
“I failed her,” says Leo. His eyes are glassy and his brown skin is much too pale. “I failed myself, and I failed the gods. I’ve sunk too low to want for anything myself.”
“Even a broken man has wants,” Apollo says gently, as if frightened of scaring a wounded animal.
“I want to die and be with her,” he says. “But I cannot kill myself and be in the company of her heroism. I do not think I deserve it.”
“I thought I deserved the magic of mortals,” says Apollo, and Leo blinks at him with surprise. “I was wrong. I think you are wrong about this too.”
“My lord Apollo—”
“There’s no need. There is only mercy.” Apollo withdraws a long knife from the folds of his robe and lodges it in Leo’s chest. He’s not sure what forces are guiding his hand, but knowledge of medicine instinctively tells him he’s hit the boy’s vagus nerve.
Leo’s hands fly up around the knife instinctively, but the expression on his face isn’t shock or despair. It’s not happiness either. It is as though he has come home after a very long time lost at sea, and is well rested enough to gain his bearings and simply sit on his couch to look out at the ocean for a while. The wave returns to where it came from, to where it’s supposed to be. To Apollo’s surprise, Leo looks peaceful.
“Thank you,” gasps Leo before slumping to the floor.
“You are welcome,” Apollo tells the corpse. He is tempted to simply leave the house as he came, but is once again distracted by a Valdez creation. The pipes sit on the counter just out of reach, and Apollo steps over the body to claim them. It is a gift freely given, and it is the way Leo will survive posthumously. Not as the revered musician, but as an inventor. For some reason, Apollo thinks the boy would’ve liked that.
He lifts the pipes to his mouth and begins to play.
Some say the music guided a lost soul to his lover’s arms in an open clearing, where they danced until their feet hurt and the sun rose again. It was a strange dance because he wouldn’t lose sight of her, and thus much spinning was out of the question. The music was uptempo and sweet, but the waltzing confused the nature spirits until they simply let the lovers lie at peace.
Others say the music awoke the goddess of love and let her send spirals of magic all the way to Tartarus, where she lifted a soul from the cruel arms of Hades and laid her down to rest. In a tomb near Cyprus, two bodies curl towards each other, separated in life but never in death.
Most say Apollo’s pipes were simply beautiful, and that Leo Valdez walked up to Piper McLean in the clouds all on his own. For once, he trusted in the will of the gods. He found his wife again, or maybe she found him, but either way they danced on Mount Olympus until true death arrived to carry them away. On earth they buried Leo at her side, and it’s said that the nightingales around his grave sing more sweetly than they do anywhere else.