A/N: I will not be able to post the fourth chapter of this tomorrow, due to time constraints in my personal life, but I should be back on track to post chapter four on Thursday and five on Friday. There may be a sixth chapter of this one, we'll see. Thank you for your reviews folks, and thank you for reading and sticking with the story all those of you who are not reviewing.

Episode 3: For the Book, Chapter 3

"JENKINS!"

The shout rang through the office and filtered out into the corridors and attached rooms of the library itself.

"You hollered, Mr Stone?" Jenkins' finely clipped tones floated down from the mezzanine.

"We thought you'd be looking after Ezekiel," Cassandra soothed. "Sorry."

"And if I had been, I am certain that shout would have reached me," replied the oldest member of the team. "I assume there was a reason for it?"

"What happened between eleven sixty and thirteen eighty five?" Stone asked.

"Forty five," corrected Cassandra.

"Thirteen forty five," he conceded.

"What am I? Your own personal almanac?" Jenkins railed, stalking down the stairs. "Maybe I should just change my name to Siri and be done with it!"

"Nah, we already asked Siri, it didn't know," said Stone, grinning.

"I'm not sure whether to be relieved or insulted," grumbled Jenkins. "Relieved I haven't been upstaged by a mobile telephone, or insulted that you asked it before me!"

"Do you know what was going on in those years?" Cassandra wheedled. "I'm sure it's before your time and everything, but you do know so much..."

Jenkins cut her off with an amused look, aware that she knew full well those years were decidedly part of his 'time'. "Flattery will get you everywhere, Miss Cillian," he sighed. "As it happens those years do ring a bell. They are when work began on the Cathèdrale Notre-Dame de Paris, and when that building was deemed completed and was consecrated. Another riddle I presume?"

"Half of one," she replied with a smile. She reached up and kissed the old man's cheek. "Thank you Mr Jenkins."

Stone had already set the door by the time Cassandra turned round. He looked over at the empty desk in the corner and frowned. "Where are Baird and Flynn?"

"Egypt," Jenkins answered promptly. "Any other questions you'd like answering while I'm here, Mr Stone?"

"Not unless you happen to know how many more stops there are on this treasure trail we're on," Stone called back over his shoulder as they headed through the door.

Jenkins watched them go. "Well now, it would rather spoil all the fun if I told you that," he mused.

"How much do you know about this little quest they're on?" Ezekiel's voice floated down from the mezzanine.

"Not enough to be of any great use," he assured the ex-thief. "And I thought we'd agreed you were going to stay lying down."

"I can't read lying down - my arms get sore," the boy moaned. "Then I end up falling asleep and the book falls on my head and wakes me up."

"Probably a sign you should still be in bed, then," Jenkins explained patiently. "Remind me what it was I told you when you decided to drag yourself out of your sickbed and interrupt my research?"

"Yeah, yeah," groaned Ezekiel, never one to admit defeat if he could help it. "I think I'll go take a nap."

XXXX

Jacob Stone stepped out of the wormhole onto familiar ground. He looked up at the Eiffel tower, rising tall in front of them at the far end of the street. It was raining in Paris. He looked over at Cassandra, in her short blue dress and cardigan. She was fishing around in her bag for something. A second later he dodged back as a large telescopic umbrella unfolded itself with ballistic speed. She giggled at the look on his face.

"You didn't think I'd travel the world in this outfit and not take an umbrella, did you?" Cassie grinned.

"I didn't think they'd miniaturised and weaponised them!" Jacob replied. He wrapped an arm around her and pulled her close, taking the umbrella out of her hand and holding it over them both. He kissed her, then met her puzzled gaze. "I love you, you know."

"I love you too," she replied, still watching his face suspiciously. Then light seemed to dawn. "You set the globe with Mabel's postcards, didn't you."

"Yeah," he admitted, drawing the word out with a grimace.

"You are the only man I know that would feel guilty over that," said Cassie, not sure whether to frown or laugh.

"I just..." Jacob looked up at the underside of the umbrella, it's spokes sparkling silver in the reflected light of the street lamps that were bursting into life all along the roadside. "The last time I was here, Mabel had just died and a part of me, however irrational, still blamed you. She was in my thoughts the whole time. I couldn't even bare to think about you. Not even to tell myself how unfair I was being. I just want you to know I'm not thinking that way now. I don't blame you. Not in any tiny way. Not even subconsciously. I still feel sad when I think about Mabel, but she ain't uppermost in my thoughts right now. She's there, at the back of my mind, but you're here," he placed a hand on his heart, "and you always will be."

"It's okay, I don't mind," smiled Cassie. "She saved us all, we shouldn't forget her, especially not here."

She kissed him, then wrapped her arm through his, which was still holding the umbrella. "Come on," she said. "You can show me around."

They walked through the rain swept streets, the pavement shining up at them like silvered glass, happy in each other's company. Gradually, the perfectly symmetrical facade of Notre-Dame de Paris rose up to meet them, illuminated from below by carefully concealed lighting. The door, despite the sinking sun hidden behind the dark rain clouds, was still unlocked. They made their way inside, shaking the rain from the umbrella. Cassandra picked up a visitor guide. Stone started scanning the various inscriptions and dedications on the walls and windows. He was standing looking up at a beautifully detailed painting in a side chapel when he heard her slight footsteps near his side.

"You're not going to like this," she whispered.

"Not the crypt again," he groaned. "It's closed off for archaeological work, and guarded. We'd never get down there."

"No, um," she tried to stop the smile that tugged at the corners of her mouth. "A bit higher."

"Tell me," he glared.

"There are three hundred and eighty seven steps to the top of the South Tower," Cassandra blurted out, drawing looks from visitors across the other side of the nave. She stifled a giggle at the look of utter exhaustion that crossed her boyfriend's face at the thought.

"Tell me you can keep count," he groaned.

"I think so," she shrugged.

"'Cause I really don't feel like climbing up and down over a hundred stairs numerous times just because I lost count around the one twenty mark."

"We'll be fine," she laughed, though quietly. "I'll concentrate on counting, and you can carry me up the stairs."

"Not happening, hey!" Jacob called after her in hushed tones. She looked back with a grin and continued to lead the way to the South Tower. He bit back a curse and hurried after her.

Finding the hundred and twenty eighth stair turned out to be the easy part. After an hour of searching for clues, the pair were still no further forward, with neither the end of their quest nor the next riddle in sight.

"What if he meant one twenty eight down from the top?" Cassandra mused.

"Then we find a hotel and come back tomorrow," grumbled Stone. "The light will be better in the morning."

"The light's electric in here," laughed Cassandra.

"Of course it is," he groaned. A thought knocked him out of his black mood. "But it wouldn't have been then," he said, looking up with shining eyes. "These lights wouldn't have been installed until much later."

"You think it's behind the lights?" Cassandra frowned.

"No, I don't think it has anything to do with the lights," he replied, smiling.

"But you just said..."

"I think it has to do with what was here before the lights." Stone pulled a flashlight out of his pocket and knelt down. "The electric lights are creating shadows that weren't here then. Any shadow would have been cast by the wavering light of the torch or candle the climber carried."

"What are you doing?" Cassandra asked as she watched him tilt his head to look along the vertical axis of the step.

"Hah!" Stone cried out in triumph. "Gotcha!"

"Really?" Cassandra's voice went up a notch. "I don't see anything."

"You're at the wrong angle," he told her. "It's only visible if the light hits it at certain angles, and only readable if you look at it at exactly the right one. Like those sidewalk pictures."

Cassandra took out her notebook. "So what does it say?"

"Where he who stole the sacred Vase,

Was, like all who followed after him, crowned.

My words, in sight and sound, ring true,

Around the edge of Charlotte's skirt."

"Oh good, another poem that doesn't rhyme," quipped Cassandra, busily scribbling.

"It does in French," said Stone. "At least, the top three lines do, then the fourth doesn't."

Cassandra stuck her tongue out at the back of his head. "Any ideas where we might find this Charlotte?"

"One or two," he said. "Now, however, I suggest we go get dinner, then go home, reset the door and go find a hotel at our next destination so we can start the day bright and early on French time."

An odd noise made him look round. Cassandra was looking upwards and biting her lip. He looked up but couldn't see anything.

"What?" Stone asked.

"Nothing," said Cassie in strangled tones. "I just can't say what I was going to say in a church."

"Oh?" Jacob raised an amused eyebrow and shone the torch on her. "I must remember and ask you about it when we're not in a church, then."

"What makes you think it wasn't a swearword," she shrugged defensively.

"You're blushing."