Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes

Peter cannot initially process this new information—an orphan and a criminal is now a royal prince—but he soon accepts it and vows to free his subjects from Incarnadine’s tyranny, by killing the corrupt king. Coming up with a plan, however, is another matter. Peter imagines the problem as a complicated and deadly lock, seeing the resolution in two parts: freeing the children, and overpowering the king and his apes. While contemplating how to pick hundreds of locks in a single night, they hear an ape approaching. They leave the king’s maps strewn about the floor and hide inside the giant clock tower bell. When Jawbone, the ape tasked with guarding the entrance to the clock tower, finds the maps, he goes in search of Longclaw. Peter deduces that there must be a secret tunnel or bridge crossing the chasm into the Just Deserts in order for the king to smuggle weapons to the thieves. They decide to cross it and bring the ravens back to free the children.

They follow Jawbone to a heavily guarded stone tower. Apes are carrying weapons inside. Sir Tode notices a dirigible moored to the top of the tower, the means by which the king maintains contact with the other side. Sir Tode and Simon will steal the dirigible, fly to the Just Deserts, and fetch the ravens, while Peter and Peg oil the children’s shackles, making them easier to pick.

In order to grease the locks, Peter and Peg must steal grease from the kitchen, which means sneaking past the Eating Hall at mealtime. As it turns out, at that moment, the king is addressing his subjects, rallying them to his cause of world conquest. Peg notices that everyone is armed with spears and shields; the king commands them to kill spies on sight, describing them as children without saying the word: “They look just like humans, but smaller, with skinnier arms and legs” (303). Brainwashed, the people vow to kill their own children.

As Simon and Sir Tode plot to steal the dirigible, Sir Tode confesses that his knighthood was accidental and undeserving. He was a shepherd whose flock was attacked by a dragon, but the beast choked to death on a sheep while Tode slept nearby. The next morning, thinking he had slain the dragon, the townspeople demanded he be knighted. Simon commiserates, noting that he too was afraid in the days after Incarnadine’s attack, spending years in hiding before freeing Princess Peg. With the airship fully loaded and ready to launch, Simon grips Sir Tode in his talons and flies into battle against the apes.

Peter and Peg slip through the palace’s hollowed-out walls, ducking between the cogs and gears before the dinner bell sounds. Inside the kitchen, Peg scoops up a goblet of slug lard and moves toward the service entrance, which leads down to the mines. Peter stops. Something smells off. At closer inspection, he realizes the king has been sprinkling Devil’s Dram, a root that weakens the mind, on the food, allowing him to control and manipulate all the adults in the kingdom. While Peg distracts the apes, Peter replaces the Devil’s Dram with pepper.

Meanwhile, Simon flies above the enraged apes, Sir Tode in his talons. Unable to carry the knight any longer, he drops him into the dirigible’s nets. The raven then flies into the airship’s furnace, emerging with hot coals in his talons. He drops the coals onto the apes holding the ship’s mooring lines; they immediately release the lines, and the ship drifts from the dock. Simon then attacks the ape pilots. One ape grabs Simon, but Sir Tode launches himself into the fray, sending all three pilots plummeting over the side. The ship is secure.

Sneaking past the occupied guards, Peter creeps toward the moat, where several sea serpents strain at their leashes trying to eat him. Within arm’s length of the monsters, Peter reaches out and touches a tooth. Then, he pops the onyx eyes into his sockets, transforming himself into a serpent and slithering through a fissure in the rock wall into open waters. In the meantime, Peg creeps down the cavern ledge, crawls into an empty barrel, and rolls it into the water, floating unseen across the moat. Safely on the other side, she makes her way to a cage holding Lillian, Scrape, Timothy, Marbles, and Giggle. She hands the children the goblet of slug lard and instructs them to dab a bit into their rusty locks. Peter, meanwhile, swims through the ocean looking for Frederick, the massive dogfish he encountered earlier. 

As Sir Tode masters the art of piloting the airship, Simon tosses the weapons overboard into the great chasm. Sir Tode spots a massive cloud ahead—the Winds of War, a tempest of wind and stinging dust created by the furious beating of ravens’ wings. They reach the border of the Just Deserts and find the raven’s Nest destroyed. Following a trail of bodies, they hear the sounds of battle raging further inland. As they pass through the Winds of War, they see the battlefield below. Thieves have captured many ravens in sacks, piling them in a large pit. Raven Captain Amos, seeing the airship approaching with Simon on board, rallies his troops, but, at that moment, a thief throws a dagger that pierces the raven’s heart. Without a leader, the ravens stop fighting, overcome with grief, until Simon assumes command. Once again, he gathers hot coals from the airship’s furnace, which he drops on the unsuspecting thieves. In the ensuing chaos, the bags catch fire, releasing the captured ravens.