The Nightmare Queen has hidden the Book of Grimmery. Without it, Grimmery will fall and its people will become slaves. To find the book, Ike and Mellie need a goblin spell from the forbidden land of Gobbeloon. But Ike makes a disastrous blunder. If he had kept his mouth shut, he would not have been turned into a night-gaunt, the creature he feared more than anything in the world. Nor would he have attacked his best friend. And he definitely would not have died . . .
In Gobbeloon, Ike and Mellie are thrown into the goblin king's dungeon. To get the spell, Ike must give up his enchanted pen, which he needs to clear his dead parents' names, or fight off the Nightmare Queen's army all by himself. How can he hope to defeat the queen, outwit the wily, treacherous goblins and escape with both the counter-spell and the pen?