Just when Valor McRaven and his sister, Doomsy Gloomsy, are minutes from becoming apprentices of magic at Mystic Steeples, their parents snatch them away in an escape from the sanatorium with two nutty Nizzertits they have befriended. Valor and Doomsy find themselves fleeing Hoopenfangia all the way to the Bumbling Boonies where Valor's father plans to live in a hole in the ground to escape the Grim Warlock's Thirteenth Hour--if Houmas McRaven can get his family through the enchanted door of the Ambergis Divide, that is. But has Houmas led his family into the very pit of danger and death, he had imagined escaping? Will Valor's friends show up after the war that ignites the Thirteenth Hour traps him and Doomsy in its sticky web? Come along as Valor and Doomsy encounter magical creatures, a tombstone amusement park, and a tower of Sorcerers while unraveling more clues to the mysteries surrounding the McRavens.