ABANDONED. YA Fantasy: The mentor character is from Earth and the protagonist has something funky going on with his eyes

[Sam]

I read the book in 2012-2014. I remember three distinct details.
1) The mentor character was from Earth and had been trapped in the Fantasy world. He was looking for a way back to Earth. The only thing he had from his old life was an American penny.
2) The protagonist has strange eyes that are of interest to the mentor character. (I think his eyes were green also I think he was an orphan?)
3) Each chapter had a small image at the start. SPOILERS AHEAD: one of the images was of the main villain, who originally walks around covering his face but is revealed to have a grotesque face covered in various different eyeballs. He wanted to steal the protagonist's eyes.

[Becca]

I'm not sure if you're still looking for this, but I think it's Happenstance Found by P.W. Catanese.

You can use the Google Books preview to look inside - the illustration you describe showing the villan with eyeballs all over his face is at the beginning of Chapter 30.
https://www.google.co.uk/books/editio...

[Kris]

No response, moving to Abandoned folder.

Sam (OP) was last active on the site in August 2020.