Chapter 26

"So where did you say we going again?" Jason asked, knowing full well Leo hadn't actually told him to begin with. He was hoping to basically trick Leo into telling him, but of course, his friend was too clever for that.

"I didn't. You'll see when we get there," Leo turned to grin at him for a second, before continuing to lead the way through the twisting back halls of the castle.

Technically Leo wasn't supposed to be in the castle at all, and Jason couldn't help but wonder if the reason Leo had been so insistent on him coming along was because it would give him an excuse if he got caught rather then wanting to hang out like Leo insisted. Or maybe he just wanted someone to show off to. Either way, when he had heard Jason had the afternoon off because the prince was off doing something with his father's men, Leo had jumped on the chance and made sure he had some free time as well.

Now here they were, slipping through back halls of the castle and climbing up yet another set of stairs. Jason had no idea how high they were at this point, but it had to be pretty far up. Which made it all the more surprising when he heard footsteps coming around the corner towards them.

His immediate reaction was to get Leo out of sight, but to his slight annoyance, it appeared his friend was completely unaware of the footsteps. Or maybe he just didn't care. Either way there wasn't enough time for Jason to say anything before the footsteps had turned the corner in front of them, revealing Piper of all people. For a moment they just looked at each other in surprise, before Jason bowed, and to his relief Leo did as well.

"Jason, it's a pleasure to see you again," Piper smiled as Jason and Leo righted themselves "Though this wasn't exactly a place I was expecting to find you."

"We could say the same for you m'lady."

Jason instinctively stiffened as he heard Leo next to him. If he had been speaking to anyone else they would be in a lot of trouble. Luckily though, they were talking to Piper, and the girl just laughed and nodded in agreement "Fair enough, though sometimes even princesses need to get out of their rooms and clear their heads. And you are?"

"The reason Jason is wandering around back areas of the castle," Leo replied, grinning a bit before adding "If you mean my name though, that would be Leo."

"It's a pleasure to meet you," Piper smiled at him, which finally made Jason relax, though he was still making mental notes to never let Leo anywhere near another nobel again, except maybe Percy. The guy would end up getting himself thrown in the dungeon.

"What are you two doing here then?" Piper asked curiously, and Jason had finally gotten over his surprise at Leo's response enough to answer.

"I wish I knew, but my friend here refuses to tell me," Jason said, mock glaring at bit as he looked at Leo, which just made the other boy smirk more.

"I would be happy to tell you m'lady, but I'm afraid if I did that Jason here would also hear," Leo replied, still grinning as he looked over at her "So we would have to walk a little away from him, or if you would rather you could just join us."

Jason wanted to smack Leo. He couldn't understand how he could be so relaxed around the princess. Sure Jason had relaxed around her, but that was after he knew it was appreciated not at the first meeting. It didn't make any sense to him. Maybe it was just because Leo had never really been around nobles before, only seeing them for very short periods of time.

"Now you've piqued my interest enough that I feel like I have to know, if I wouldn't be imposing," Piper laughed slightly as she looked between them, causing Leo to grin again.

"Not at all." Without waiting for her to say anything else Leo moved to start down the hallway "If this works, the more people that see it the better. If it fails- well than we can all laugh about it."

Leo lead them up two more flights of stairs, before they finally popped out into one of the lower towers. They were nowhere near the top of the castle, but they were still pretty high up.

"This better be worth it Valdez, that was a lot of stairs," Jason teased, taking a deep breath as they finally reached the outside. He was only slightly winded, but that didn't mean he enjoyed climbing stairs.

Instead of responding, Leo just knelt down to start pulling things out of his bag, while Jason walked over to glance over the edge for a moment. Than he turned his attention back to Leo, leaning on one of the short walls as he did so. As he watched Leo pulled out a few different metal and cloth pieces and started to fit them together. When he was done he pushed himself up and proudly showed them the contraption.

"You're going to throw it off the tower and hope it doesn't crash," Piper guessed, before raising an eyebrow a bit "Though I have no idea why you are going to do that."

"It's to send messages from one tower to another," Leo explained, motioning to the small bucket he'd hooked up to it "This is just a prototype, but the idea is that it will fly directly from one tower to another so messages can be sent from one side of the castle to the other faster. I may end up needing to implement a string that runs between the towers, but I want to try a free flying contraption first. A string is far too easy to cut."

"Don't you think you should have try at a shorter height first?" Jason asked, raising an eyebrow a bit "So if it doesn't work it won't be completely broken?"

"What fun is that?"

Jason knew he likely couldn't argue with that, and in the end it was Leo's to brake if he wanted, so he just nodded for him to continue.

Leo glanced between them to assure they were ready, before grinning and raising his hand to throw his device "Test flight one is a go."

The metal contraption shot out of Leo's hand, and for about thirty seconds Jason thought it might work. The contraption was floating along towards the opposite tower. Then the wind blew, and all of a sudden it was heading in another direction, and it quickly crashed into a wall. His eyes watched as the metal crashed to the ground below.

"That's a shame, for a moment there I thought it might work," Piper sounded a little disappointed, but mostly sympathetic.

In fact, she seemed more disappointed than Leo, who just shrugged, smiling a bit as he turned back to them "Worked longer than I expected actually. This was the first run, I thought it was going to just fall right away. Time to go get the pieces and get to tinkering again."

Still grinning he turned to head back towards the stairs and start down them again "Come on- once I gather the pieces you guys can help me fix it. Or we can do something else if that doesn't sound like how you want to spend your afternoon."

Smiling, Jason pushed himself off the wall to follow Leo, falling into step next to Piper, who was laughing slightly. Looking over at him, she raised an eyebrow "He doesn't get discouraged easily, does he?"

"Not in the slightest," Jason agreed, laughing, and looking forward at Leo, who was already a little ways ahead of them in his excitement. Or maybe he was scared that someone would throw away his metal if he didn't get there fast enough "Never actually. He's going to be tinkering on this until he either figures it out or gets distracted by another project."

"How long does that usually take? For him to get distracted I mean," Piper asked curiously.

"Usually about two weeks, but it depends on how long it took him to come up with the idea and how much work he put into the original design," Jason shrugged, "We better hurry up before he gets to far ahead. Chances are he'll end up getting sidetracked and finding his way into some sort of trouble."

Despite his words there was fondness in his voice. Piper nodded in agreement and, both smiling a bit, they hurried to try and catch up to Leo.