“There!” Win points to the horizon, where a black speck occasionally peeks above the waves. I take the telescope. The ship is tall with black leather sails. It’s definitely the Raven and it’s racing toward the End.

“Robight, fobastober!” Rose shouts. The dragon’s crusty ears prick up. She points her snout at the Raven and shoots forward as if she’s hunting it down.

I try to hold the telescope steady and keep the ship in sight. Details leap out at me: the figurehead of a crow, tarry planks, round windows, bulging leather sails. I run the telescope up an impossibly tall mast until I hit a mass of twigs: the crow’s nest. Then I see a flapping coat and stick fingers looped around the mast. Someone is standing there. I hold my breath and raise the telescope even higher. A face with a stitched mouth, wild straw hair, and two beady eyes stares back at me.

“It’s Crowky,” I whisper.

As if he’s heard me, a stitched grin spreads across his face. Suddenly his ragged wings unfold and he leaps out of the crow’s nest. Like a bat he swoops and glides. Then he grabs hold of the mast, swings around it, and drops to the deck, his coat billowing behind him. He throws a final look in our direction, then the Raven slips between two waves and disappears from view.

“He was in the crow’s nest,” I say. “He was looking for us!”

Suddenly the Raven appears again. Win leans forward. “Rose, we’re close. Get Bad Dragon to set fire to the sails. Stop Crowky now!”

Rose shakes her head. “I can’t. There’s things alive on that boat.” She’s not just talking about Crowky. We can see the scarecrow army scurrying around the deck. They don’t look broken and depleted like we thought they would. There are loads of them, too many to count, and if anything they look even bigger than before. Crowky’s been busy building up his army. “If we set fire to the boat, everything on board will be destroyed,” Rose says. “No one, not even Crowky, could survive in the sea here. We can’t do that!”

An hour ago I’d have agreed with her, but now, watching Crowky race toward the End with Mitch’s tattoo, I know we’ve got to stop him. “We could set fire to one of the sails. Remember when Pickle melted Grandad’s chains? Get Bad Dragon to do a quick blast like that, enough to do some damage and stop them from going any farther.”

I’m not sure what we’d do next. All I know is that we have to stop Crowky.

We’re flying over the Raven now. The scarecrow crew gaze up at us. I can see their button eyes and their round, pale faces. They don’t look scared or worried. If anything they look curious.