Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.

This story would be nothing without my amazing beta-team, Jadsmama and Ladysharkey1.

Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O, no, it is an ever-fixèd mark, that looks on tempests and is never shaken.

William Shakespeare, Sonnet 116

Prologue

"Do you think this is it?" The same impatience I felt shone through in his voice as he hovered close but, for once, the proximity of another body to mine didn't bother me as much as it used to.

"It has to be," I muttered, my hands trembling as I opened the rigid leather cover, the leaves of the ancient books rifling under my fingers as I searched.

And found nothing.

There was not even a clue about where we could find the treasure we were so desperately looking for in the place we knew for so sure we would have found it.

"It has to be here," I repeated, feeling a slight hint of disappointment, as the pages gave away nothing but their time old wisdom. "It has to be. He said so…himself...in his own hand." I was starting to get slightly frantic, knowing that if we didn't find what we came here for, our mission to protect the true legacy of Johannes van Leyden would be nothing more than common burglary.

"Try the cover," Edward suggested, his eyes shooting towards the door to check for unwanted company, as he fought his own urge to rip the book from my hands and tear through it as I knew he would have been doing had it not been for the stubborn historian by his side.

If anyone had told me months ago that I would have been breaking and entering into the house of a member of the Manhattan elite to engage in the possible theft of a historical document I would have laughed until I cried.

But here I was, fighting my own desperate urge to rip away the pages as my fingers blindly felt along the cover of the Van Leyden family Bible, my lips sucking in a sharp gasp as stocked along what felt like a document hidden within the cover.

"I think…" I bit my lip, unable to grasp the enormity of the moment as my eyes searched and found Edward's right as a loud bang drew our attention away from each other and the book, the door flying open as the one man we'd been trying to avoid crashed into the room.

Somehow, in my state of shock, I managed to react quickly, sticking to the plan we'd come up with the night before as I pushed the Bible underneath my clothes, wincing as the unyielding ancient cover scraped along my ribcage as I tried to get my legs to move.

"Run, Bella!" Edward yelled, my legs finally obeying his command as the sound of two bodies crashing against each other behind me was the final thing I heard before I sprinted out of the library, the faces and sounds of surprise as the party guests parted to let me through drowning out the noise of the fight upstairs.

Please let him be okay, I prayed, clutching the Bible to my chest as I was finally outside, my feet never stopping as I ran along the crowded sidewalks until I was out of breath, my chest hurting both from the strain of exertion and the fear that something had happened to Edward. More than ever I wished that I'd been born brave; courageous enough to go back and save him from whatever that despicable madman would do if he got his hands on him, tears pouring down my face as my feet kept moving away while my heart lagged behind.

"Bella!" My crushed heart leapt violently in my chest as he finally rounded the corner onto his street, his lip bleeding and a bruise starting to form around his left eye.

"You're okay!" I whimpered, my lips trembling as finally the stress of the past few hours caught up with me. I reached out, my hand only catching cool air and drips of water as he continued towards me at a steady pace, his own shoulders sagging with relief as he too checked me for visible signs of harm. "Thank God! You're okay. Did he hurt you?"

"I'll live," he shrugged. "Did you get it?"

I nodded, pulling the book from underneath my jacket. "Do you think he knows we took something?"

"Who knows?" Another shrug as we started to make our way up the steps to the Cullen family townhouse. "Who cares?"

I know I probably should have cared but, given everything I knew about the document, I suspected this Bible contained and the two people who'd given their lives to make sure it didn't fall into the wrong hands, I found that sometimes necessity knows no law.

And after all, was it really stealing when finally, after almost a century had passed, Johannes' final legacy would finally end up in the hands of the people who were supposed to have it all along?

This was no crime.

I smiled as I looked up at him. For the first time since he'd come up with our harebrained scheme, I was starting to accept the fact that he had been right, my hands trembling as I handed him the book. "I think you should be the one to open it."

He nodded, drops of water dripping from the ends of his hair as his fingers ran along the spine of the heavy book in a light caress. "Do you really think it's in here?"

"It has to be," I whispered, anticipation and emotion over-clouding everything else as I watched Edward's sure fingers open the cover and glide along the rigid inside of it, his breath stopping and his face splitting into a surprised grin as they came across a bump in the otherwise pristine paper binding the sacred words from their ornate leather cover.

"I think…" He muttered astonished, my heart pounding in my throat as our eyes locked; both wide with anticipation and the magnitude of this moment. "I think this is it."

Thoughts?