Once upon a time, on a rocky island with enchantment under the ocean ... Cadence Bell left the windswept Northern Isles and his parents’ inn for the theaters and royal masques and glitter of Londre, swearing he’d make his fortune as a playwright and poet, trading fish stew and rain for fame and adoration and a place at the Queen’s Court. Now his parents are gone and Cade’s inheritance brings him back home, where he’d never wanted to return. But magic lurks beneath the waves, a stray pearl might be a key to another world, and even the quiet local schoolteacher has secrets of his own. Jeremiah Carver never meant to hide secrets. But he promised to tell no one about the other world he’s seen, and he keeps his word. Even if that means concealing magic from Cadence Bell. Which is difficult, since Cade’s not only a dazzling literary success, but also the person Jeremiah’s loved from afar since their years-ago childhood. And he’s afraid he’s falling for Cade all over again now. When Cadence falls under the siren spell of the ocean’s magic, Jeremiah has to make a choice and return to a world he’s left behind once before to rescue his heart from the sea.

Cadence and the Pearl

Cade took the well-worn walking trail along the rocks that outlined the half-ring of their safe haven for ships. At the far end Jeremiah’s father’s lighthouse towered in grim white silence; Richard Carver had been more or less a recluse even when they’d been boys. Cade couldn’t remember seeing him more than once or twice, and never on purpose, only a chance encounter or two at the closest shop. He’d never come to meet young Jeremiah after school.


Foot arrested on a lumpy rock, Cadence wandered into imagination. A story insinuated itself: an improbable melodrama of a father and son and a wife with a secret, a lady who’d been a selkie, perhaps, and maybe she’d not died in childbirth after all, maybe she’d gone back to the sea, and Richard couldn’t look at his son not only out of grief but from the weight of keeping that magical secret…


Chapter 13