11. Norditch

"Hold on a minute." Sienna held up the hand of her free arm as she tried to digest the information Jem was laying before her. "You're saying that you think the cliff might have been tampered with, and that what happened wasn't an accident?"

Jem nodded. "It was just made to look like one."

Sienna glanced over to Casper, seated to the side and looking on like an impartial judge. "What do you think?"

He leaned forward in his chair. "Is that really something that's possible to do with magic?"

She tilted her head thoughtfully.

If he were a Dwarf or even part Gnome, he would know about the music of the rocks and earth. Maybe he comes from a Dryad family—but sailing would be an even stranger occupation for one of them—and he doesn't have wings, which means a Pixie is out of the question.

"You don't know?"

He shrugged and shot Jem an uncomfortable glance before admitting, "Magic isn't really my forte."

Ah, maybe he's one of those poor souls born tone deaf, and he can't hear the music. How horrible!

Her heart ached for him. Even as much as it physically pained her sometimes to be unable to access magic the way she once had, at least she could still hear the beauty of the music and lose herself in the soothing, rippling melodies of the water. It was out of reach, but not lost entirely.

Though I suppose that if he never heard it in the first place, he doesn't realize what he's missing.

"With the right song, it is. Dwarves and Gnomes and any other fae who have Natural magic attuned to rocks and minerals would have no problem manipulating its shape."

"Are there any around here?"

"There are a few families in town. Grant Minuendo is the blacksmith, and his brother Breck works as a stonemason. But before you start getting ideas, neither of them would ever dream of doing anything like this."

Jem drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair. "What about elves?"

Sienna sat up straighter. "Elves?"

"Their magic is different, isn't it?"

"Yes," she answered slowly. "Their Creative magic allows them to do almost anything, but only if they know the right song. I'm not sure how many elves are walking around with a song to split rocks in their repertoire. Besides, the only elf family around here is Erik's."

Casper and Jem shared a significant look.

"Wait!" she gasped. "You think Erik wanted to kill me?"

Jem shrugged. "It would be a rather convenient way to get the lighthouse."

"Ha. It would be anything but, and he has to know that. If I died and there was even the hint of foul play, Celesta and Drosselmeyer would stop at nothing until they found out the truth." A sudden thought struck her. "Wait! Maybe this has something to do with the crates. Papa certainly seemed spooked by something."

"What crates?" Casper's eyes were bright with an interest she had never seen before, and she was distracted for a moment by how they lit up his face.

She blinked, breaking the sky blue spell. "I was walking along the beach the day before yesterday and decided to go exploring in some caves I know of nearby. One of them was piled high with crates, all stamped with the label ‘Hollander's Emporium.'"

Casper and Jem shared a long look, communicating something across the distance between them.

"You're sure it was Hollander's?"

"Of course I'm sure," she huffed. "My voice is broken, not my eyesight. It's not the name of any merchant or seller I know around here, but Drosselmeyer is looking into it."

"Drosselmeyer?"

"You know, the wizard? Queen Celesta's godfather? The fae who's been almost single-handedly setting things to rights in Faerie for the last few years?" Sienna shook her head in amazement. "Honestly, where have the two of you been living lately?"

Casper's answer was prompt. "Out at sea." His face and general demeanor were back to being terse and grumpy. He seemed to hesitate for a moment. "But your wizard friend isn't going to find Hollander's anywhere around here."

She narrowed her eyes at him suspiciously. "How do you know?"

"Because Hollander's Emporium is a store on the isle of Norditch."

"Norditch? Where's that."

"In the human realm."

Sienna jumped to her feet, wincing when the movement caused her sling to bounce against her chest and jostle her sore arm. "What? How do you know that? And how is that even possible?"

The two men shared another look. Jem was the one to answer. "We know because we're from Norditch."

"You're human?" Suddenly Casper's lack of musical and magical knowledge made sense. Sienna slowly sank back to her seat, closing her eyes and rubbing her temple. The day had been full of enough excitement and surprises to last her a year, and it was just past noon.

"Fairly certain," Jem confirmed cheerfully. "At least, I was the last time I checked."

"But…how?" Sienna's mind jumped back to Drosselmeyer and Celesta's visit. "Dross is the only one who can make gates. Hold on—do you know anything about the Flying Dutchman."

Casper suddenly coughed. "I've heard of him."

"I only ask because Drosselmeyer thinks that he's human as well, but he couldn't puzzle out how a human ship could get to Faerie when he didn't set up a gateway between the realms. But if the two of you—"

"And the rest of Captain Helmrud's crew," Jem added.

"—are from the human realm, that means you must have gotten here the same way." Sienna looked back and forth between them.

Casper shifted in his seat. "The how is fairly simple. There's a place about ten miles from here where giant rocks rise above the surface of the water."

She nodded. "Sentinel's Keep."

"Well, whatever you call it, there's a breach there."

"A what?"

"A thin spot between the realms. When storms align on both sides, the wind blows through the rocks of—what did you call it? Sentinel's Keep? It harmonizes with the wind cutting across the tall, empty cliffs of Norditch's southern coast and opens up the breach. At least, so I've been told. It all sounds like wind to me."

Sienna's mind was spinning. "So there was a storm and you just…sailed through?"

"Yes."

"And the crates? They came from someone else who also came from the human realm?"

"Yes."

I need to send a message to Drosselmeyer. This is something he definitely would want to know. But speaking of…

"But if this breach is just there, why is this the first time I'm hearing about it? Why has it been kept such a secret?"

Jem re-inserted himself into the conversation. "I would imagine because it's better for business that way."

"Business? What business?"

"Smuggling."

Sienna's jaw dropped, and she looked between the two men, searching for any sign that they were in jest. Both wore perfectly serious expressions on their faces. An unpleasant thought followed Jem's revelation.

"Is that why you're here?"

"In a way." Casper's voice was quiet, and his eyes were unfocused as they stared into the crackling fire in the hearth.

Jem rolled his eyes. "And by that Casp means that we do our best to stop the illicit trade. We were actually watching for a ship to come through the breach a few nights ago, but it got away while we were helping your father."

They were quiet for a moment, the only sound to be heard was the distant, muffled song of the sea. Sienna struggled to wrap her mind around it all.

Casper and Jem are human. There is a way to travel between Faerie and the human realm without using one of Drosselmeyer's gates, and it's being used by smugglers to bring something into Faerie, which they apparently have been hiding in the caves. But that doesn't explain why Papa was so upset when he found out that I was there. Unless…does he already know about it somehow? But if he does, why wouldn't he say something?

"Can you show us where you found the crates?"

Casper's voice interrupted her musings. She looked up, meeting his eyes. They were a confusing mixture of guilt and muted hope, resignation and longing, and she suddenly found herself wishing she could peel back the prickly layers around his heart and find out what made him so guarded.

He's in a strange world chasing criminals. There has to be some kind of story there.

"Sienna?"

Belatedly, she realized that she had yet to answer his question. "Oh. Um. I can, but you'll have to wait for a while. The tide is too high right now for us to get inside without magic, and I can't really help you in that department." She laughed humorlessly. "If Devri or Papa were here, it would be a different matter, but you've been stuck with me, I'm afraid."

"You mean we are granted the pleasure of your company," Jem corrected her gallantly. "Isn't that right, Casp?"

Her human fiancé was studying her with narrowed eyes, as if he could see past the indifferent, self-deprecating wall she had thrown up to the place in her heart where the sharp edges of Erik's words still stung. After a long moment, he turned slowly away to face Jem.

"That goes without saying. She's far better company than you, at least."

"Ouch. Tell me how you really feel."

"I did."

"Is this because I said you should smile more? Because I'll have you know, my jokes are funny."

"As your dear old Mormor used to say, ‘Laughter echoes loudest in the head of a fool.'"

Jem threw a hand to his chest dramatically. "How dare you use dear Mormor against me!"

Casper rolled his eyes and gave his attention back to Sienna, who was doing her best to stifle her laughter at their antics. "I don't mind waiting. In the meantime, why don't you help me come up with a list of ways to put this fellow to work?"