Somewhere Beyond the Sea

T. J. Klune’s 2024 contemporary/queer cozy fantasy novel Somewhere Beyond the Sea is a sequel to his 2020 best-selling book The House in the Cerulean Sea. Like The House in the Cerulean Sea, Somewhere Beyond the Sea follows the adventures of two men—Arthur Parnassus and Linus Baker—and their efforts to guide and protect a group of magical children. Although both titles are published for adult readers, their creative world-building, gentle tone, and whimsical humor make them suitable for younger readers, as well. In Somewhere Beyond the Sea, Linus and Arthur must defend their young charges from governmental agencies targeting both the children and the home that Arthur has built to shelter them from a fearful, rejecting world. The novel presents an argument for inclusion and acceptance and explores the power of love and found family to strengthen individuals and communities.

This study guide refers to the 2024 Tor hardcover first edition.

Content Warning: Somewhere Beyond the Sea makes reference to child abuse and body-shaming and alludes to anti-queer and racial bias.

Plot Summary

Many years before the events of the story take place, Arthur Parnassus returns to Marsyas Island, the site of the orphanage for magical children where he was badly abused as a child at the hands of a representative of the Department in Charge of Magical Youth (DICOMY), the government’s agency in charge of magical children. The island has been abandoned, but Arthur intends to reopen the orphanage and provide a loving home for a new generation of magical youth. Zoe Chapelwhite, the sprite who guards the island, recognizes Arthur and the sincerity of his intentions, so she allows him access and even assists him in rehabbing the large old house so that it can once again function as an orphanage. Finally, Arthur begins the daunting process of convincing the government that he is capable of caring for magical children.

In the story’s present, Arthur and his partner, Linus Baker, are getting ready to leave the island without the children for the first time. Although they are leaving the children in the care of Zoe and her partner, Helen, they feel nervous about the children’s safety. The children’s magical abilities mean that they can unintentionally create danger for themselves—and their abilities also make them the target of hatred and discrimination from the outside world. Talia is a bloody-minded gnome who loves to garden. Phee is a forest sprite with tremendous power over plant life. Theodore is a wyvern with a hoard of treasures and a special fondness for buttons. Chauncy is a cheerful, amorphous green blob who dreams of being a bellhop. Sal, the oldest, is a shy teenager who can transform into a small dog. The most powerful and feared of all of the children at the Marsyas Orphanage is Lucy: “Lucy” is short for “Lucifer,” and this child is the literal son of the Devil. Although Arthur and Linus do not approve of the term, Lucy is the actual Antichrist. Both the children and the adults are hoping that, at the conclusion of Linus and Arthur’s rip, they will be bringing home a seventh child to join their family: David, who is a yeti.

David is not the primary purpose of their trip, however. Based on his experiences as a child at this same orphanage, Arthur has been invited to testify at a government hearing. Linus and Arthur hope that his advocacy will improve the government’s treatment of magical children. Unfortunately, when they arrive in the gray and depressing city that Linus once called home, they find that the real purpose of the hearing is to impugn Arthur’s character and launch an investigation into the current state of the Marsyas Orphanage. Jeanine Rowder, a powerful government official who is the newly appointed acting head of DICOMY, accuses Arthur of using the children in his care to create his own anti-government army, and the committee decides to send a government inspector to Marsyas to determine if the children should be removed and the orphanage closed.

Arthur and Linus return to Marsyas with David. The children are delighted to meet their new brother, and David begins to adjust to the idea that he has found a loving home where he can truly be himself. Because David is an unregistered magical being, Arthur and Linus plan to hide him from the government inspector—but by the time the inspector, Harriet Marblemaw, arrives, the children have bonded with David and they insist that if David is hidden away, they will hide, too. Linus and Arthur respect the children’s claims that magical beings should not be taught to hide in the shadows and agree to a plan for David to pretend to be an adult friend of Arthur’s. Marblemaw, a sharp-eyed, narrow-minded bully, does not believe David’s ruse but has no clear way to prove that he is actually a child. As she begins her proposed two-week stay on the island, she is overtly rude and threatens over and over to remove the children from Arthur and Linus’s care. Although the children are on their best behavior and deliberately working to present their home in the best possible light, Marblemaw remains disdainful, constantly criticizing the children, their home, and their caregivers. On a trip into the nearby mainland village, Marblemaw grabs David roughly and uses denigrating language toward him, leaving him badly frightened. The children rise to David’s defense, threatening Marblemaw in return.

On the following day, Arthur learns that an even greater threat is looming: Rowder and Marblemaw are secretly conspiring to fake whatever reports they need to in order to give them a legal pretext for removing Lucy from Marsyas. Rowder plans to keep Lucy under her control by issuing threats against the other children should he fail to comply with her wishes. She intends to use Lucy as a governmental weapon to oppress other magical people. Arthur’s anger spirals out of his control, and he explodes at Linus and then takes to the sky in phoenix form. He burns so hot that the phoenix is consumed, and he falls into the ocean in human form. When Linus finds him on the beach, he’s finally able to help Arthur see that he does not have to carry his burdens alone and that it is important for Arthur to take care of himself and continue to heal the emotional wounds of his childhood instead of only focusing on others’ needs. After crying in Linus’s arms, Arthur tells Linus about Rowder’s plot and they return home to make plans to defend their children.

They find Marblemaw waiting at the house, furious about the spectacle of the phoenix’s fiery explosion over the island. She threatens Zoe with arrest as an unregistered magical being, and Zoe uses magic to confine Marblemaw inside the guesthouse for a few hours while she, Linus, Arthur, and the children discuss their options. Sal argues against expelling Marblemaw from the island immediately, as this will alert DICOMY to their planned resistance. They allow Marblemaw to stay for a few more days and the children play pranks on her designed to frighten her, but she shows herself impervious to fear. Finally, on a day when Lucy has at last succeeded in his mischievous plan to create sentient mud beings, Marblemaw’s abusive remarks and threats become too much for Arthur. He declares that he has had enough and tells Marblemaw to leave Marsyas Island. She refuses, but Zoe and Lucy direct the mud people to escort her to the docks. Zoe places a spell on Marblemaw that will prevent her from ever returning to the island.

The children enjoy a few peaceful days after Marblemaw’s banishment. On a trip into town one afternoon, however, they are surrounded by government forces. Rowder and Marblemaw are there, and Rowder announces that the children will be seized and placed into foster care. Townspeople, tourists, and reporters gather during the face-off, and Arthur and Linus make it clear exactly what Rowder’s real plan is and how abusively the government agents have acted toward the children. Townspeople come to their defense, telling Rowder’s forces that they will not be allowed to take the children. Rowder says she will have them all arrested, but they do not back down. Zoe arrives, wearing royal garb. She reveals her real identity: She is an ocean sprite, the only member of her community to survive a long-ago massacre at the hands of humans, and the hereditary ruler of Marsyas. She produces a document, signed in 1332, declaring her dominion over the area. Zoe uses magic to cast the same spell over the assembled government forces as she cast over Marblemaw earlier, making it impossible for them to return. Lucy then teleports them all back to the city.

Zoe combines her powers with those of Arthur and the children, using their combined force to raise the land around Marsyas Island. The island is returned to its original form: It becomes a large peninsula as it was in Zoe’s youth before the sprites flooded part of its land to cut it off from the mainland. Zoe declares that her realm will be a place of refuge for any magical people who need a safe home. Reporters spread the story of what has happened in Marsyas, and Rowder is fired. She’s replaced as head of DICOMY by a satyr woman much more sympathetic to the magical community. Arthur and Linus marry, and their family settles into their home in the newly created territory of Marsyas, hoping that the positive changes they have helped bring about will continue long into the future.