Trundle laughed and clapped as Jack stood at the prow of the Thief in the Night, singing lustily and sawing away at his rebec while Ishmael performed a wild and frantic dance amidships, his eyes popping and his ears revolving like windmill sails as he kicked up his heels with many a whoop and holler.

Esmeralda sat at the tiller, rubbing at her emptied plate with a final chunk of bread. “Dinner and cabaret!” She sighed contentedly. “Could any mortal animal ask for more?”

It was evening, and the sky was turning a rich, velvety blue, sewn with twinkling stars. Despite Trundle’s reservations, Ishmael had proved himself a gifted and inventive chef. Rooting through the pile of provisions, he had unearthed a little stove on which to cook and a bag of coal for fuel and even a few saucepans and cooking utensils. Then, as they had sailed on, the most delicious and mouthwatering smells had begun to waft past the noses of the three adventurers.

As the daylight faded, they had come to a great dark mass of close-packed boulders and rocks. Checking the skycharts, they had learned that this immense reach of floating debris was known as Slatterkin’s Reef. According to notes scribbled on the chart, the reef was an impassable labyrinth. But the eager phoenix feather thought differently, so it seemed—because it pointed stiff and sure right into the middle of the tumbled mass of the reef.

It was at that point that Esmeralda suggested they moor for the night, have a good meal, get some much-needed sleep, and then take a proper look at the reef first thing in the morning. No one had disagreed with this splendid plan, and so dinner had been organized, with musical entertainment to follow.

Trundle looked furtively around, then lifted his plate to his snout and gave it a long, luxuriant licking. Bad manners, to be sure, but he blamed it on Ishmael’s scrumptious cooking. It was irresistible!

A loud burp from Esmeralda proved that he was not the only one lacking proper decorum.

“Give us another tune, Jack,” Esmeralda shouted. “And three cheers as well for Ishmael March, long may his saucepan steam!”

“Thank ’ee kindly, your majesticossity,” cackled the hare. “Old Ishmael, he knows a thing or two about herbs and spices and soups and sauces, oh, yes, he does.” And he began to strut and cavort again, swinging himself around and around the mast and slapping his long feet together.

Laughing, Jack struck up a lively new tune, and Esmeralda and Trundle clapped joyfully along. Had there been any creatures living this far from civilization, they would have probably been surprised to hear laughter and singing and merry music sounding far into the starry night. And then, with the cooking fires doused and the little skyboat bobbing gently in the breeze, they would have heard the satisfied snoring of three sleeping beasts, along with the endless drowsy mutterings of a gusty, high-pitched voice.

“Blackpowder and treacle! Elbow grease and a long weight! Dance the hornpipe, Horatio! Blow it out his parson’s nose! Kipper on the starboard cow! Trim the mizzen, matey! Fifteen voles on a dead frog’s chest. Avast behind! She’s got a vast behind!”

“Ishmael?”

“Yes, your majestyness?”

“Shut up!”

“Well, I don’t know,” Jack said, peering off into the dark expanse of Slatterkin’s Reef. “I can’t see any obvious way through.”

They had not woken up quite as early as Esmeralda had suggested and were feeling a little blurry and drowsy from the late-night revels—all except Ishmael, it seemed, who leaped straight to his frying pan and began to prepare breakfast.

Slatterkin’s Reef looked no less of an obstacle in the bright morning than it had the previous evening.

“Maybe we could go around it?” Trundle suggested. “Or over it? Or even under it? I mean, it can’t go on forever, can it?”

“No, not forever, I don’t suppose,” Esmeralda replied, staring at the skychart, which showed almost nothing but the black reef, across which were written the words DEVOID OF SCIENTIFIC INTEREST. “But it could take us weeks to go all the way around, and that darned feather seems to want us to go straight through.”

She was right about that. The long red phoenix feather was aiming straight into the heart of the reef. Every now and then, a shiver would run through it, as though it was impatient to be off.

“We are most definitely in the Devoids now.” Jack sighed. “The only plan I can come up with is to follow the feather and hope for the best. There are plenty of channels and passages through the rocks, so far as I can make out—but whether they’ll bring us safely out the other side, I wouldn’t like to guess.”

“Breakfast up,” trilled Ishmael. “Roamany toast for all, me hearties! It’ll warm the cockles of yer hearts. Buckle up and sit ye down and get some of Ishmael’s grub down yer necks! Things will look better in the morning.”

“We already are in the morning, Ishmael,” muttered Trundle as the cook handed him a plate. His face brightened as he sniffed the toasted cheese that Ishmael had provided.

Soon they were all sitting around, eating heartily and swigging buttermilk.

“You’ve got to give me the recipe for this, Ishmael, my friend!” exclaimed Jack, licking his lips.

“Treacle and blackpowder!” cackled the hare. “With just a dash of brimstone. That’ll wake him up—that’ll blow sparks out o’ his parson’s nose!”

“That’s not really what we’re eating, is it?” Trundle asked.

The scraggy old hare just threw back his head and screeched with laughter.

After breakfast, they took the Thief in the Night into the reef, following the largest and straightest of the channels. The fact that there were no winds inside the maze of rocks only made things more difficult. Furling the sails, they took turns working the treadles in the rear of the skyboat to drive it along with its little stern-mounted propeller.

The weather had gradually been getting more chilly as they traveled away from the sun, but now that they were inside the shadowy reef, they finally began to feel properly cold. Warmer underwear was dug out of their hoard, and this was topped off with the odd scarf and muffler and extra pair of woolen socks.

It was hard going with the treadles, made no easier by the fact that Ishmael was quite unable to help them. Within moments of his sitting on the treadle seat and starting to pump away with his legs, his long, ungainly feet got tangled and he ended up flat on his face in the bottom of the boat. Finally they just sat him at the prow and let him shout useless instructions: “Left hand down a bit—right hand up a bit—steady as she goes—there’s a big rock—oooh, look, a boulder!” as they plowed onward.

Despite this, things seemed to be going reasonably well until, without any warning, the passageway corkscrewed, twisted, turned head over heels, and tied itself into a knot, leaving them with no option but to head back and start all over again.

The next channel they followed widened and straightened, leading them deeper into the middle of the reef. Esmeralda was pedaling while Trundle and Jack stood at either bow, fending off the bigger chunks of rock.

“I think we’re on to something here!” she puffed, her knees going up and down as the propeller whirred. “At this rate we’ll be through and out the other side before we know it!”

And then, as if to drive them all as mad as Ishmael, they came out into a small open area and saw at least twenty different channels opening up ahead of them.

“This is hopeless!” gasped Trundle. “We’ll never find our way through.”

“Look, we’ve been at it all morning.” Esmeralda rubbed her aching legs. “Let’s stop here for a spot of lunch and then consider our options.”

“A tip-top notion!” cackled Ishmael. “And what say young Jack Nimble here lightens the load with a jolly tune or two to warm us all up and to get our toes a-tapping?”

“Whatever.” Esmeralda sighed as the skyboat came to a halt.

Jack got out his rebec and started to play the tune of the phoenix song from the night before. It was rather jolly, and soon Esmeralda and Trundle were clapping along again and Ishmael was dancing on the spot as he peeled potatoes and boiled up some water on the stove.

“That’s quite a dance you’ve got going there, Ishmael,” Jack said.

“It is that, to be sure,” said Ishmael. “It’s an old hornpipe me great-grandpappy taught to me when I was just a nippy little nipper—it’s always danced to that there melody you’re playing, me lad.” He stirred some steaming sauce. “It’s called Lord Slatterkin’s Fancy.”

Trundle sat bolt upright. “It’s called what?”

“Lord Slatterkin’s Fancy,” Ishmael repeated, his feet hopping and bopping and flipping and flapping as if they had a life of their own.

Jack’s music came to a sudden halt, and all three of them stared at Ishmael.

“Let me see if I’ve got this right,” Jack said. “We’re in a place called Slatterkin’s Reef—and Ishmael here is dancing a dance called Lord Slatterkin’s Fancy.” He looked at Jack and Esmeralda. “Anyone notice a strange coincidence?”

“Coincidence be blowed!” said Esmeralda. “It’s the Fates, that’s what this is! The Fates are showing us the way out of here. Ishmael, start the dance again from the beginning!” Her eyes gleamed. “Watch closely, everyone. See exactly what he does.”

Ishmael began to prance about, chattering along to himself as he bounded around the skyboat. “Five hops left and round ye go, two hops right and do-si-do! Three hops forward, one hop back, with a wiggle and a waggle, go through the crack.”

Esmeralda stood up and stared at the channels. “Fifth to the left,” she said, pointing at one of the dark holes. “That’s the one! Trundle—man the treadles, there’s a good fellow. We’re going to follow the steps of this dance, and I’ll bet you every prickle on your back that it’ll lead us out of here before we know it!”

And so, with Ishmael March calling out the steps as he danced, and Jack bowing the rebec and Trundle pedaling for all he was worth and Esmeralda yelling directions, the Thief in the Night made its way through the maze of tunnels and causeways and channels and passages.

The fifth channel curved around and ended in a fork.

“Two hops right,” said Esmeralda, pointing to the right-hand fork. “That way!”

“What’s a do-si-do?” asked Trundle.

The channel they were in tilted abruptly upward then dropped down again.

“That is.” Jack laughed.

Suddenly they were confronted with one passageway that seemed to lead forward, and another that threatened to take them straight back to where they had started.

“One hop back,” said Trundle. “We need to follow the tunnel that looks like the wrong one!”

“Now you’re getting it,” said Esmeralda.

They headed into the channel. After a short distance, it began to zigzag violently from side to side and actually ended up turning over itself in a hairpin bend and sending them back the way they had wanted to go all along.

“Now that’s what I call a wiggle and a waggle,” said Esmeralda. “Lawks, this is working!”

On and on they went, always choosing the tunnels and passageways suggested by the steps of Ishmael’s crazy dance, until—quite suddenly, it seemed—they pushed through a narrow gap between two huge boulders and burst out into bright afternoon sunlight.

Three hearty cheers echoed across the skies of the Sundered Lands.

They were through the reef!