Chris Riddell

Platypus's lucky day does not turn out exactly the way he thought it would.

One day before her wedding, a young queen takes up a sword and races to save a cursed princess with the help of three fearless dwarf companions. But the princess is not what she seems...

In the town of Hamelin, many of the kids and adults were no good. A bunch of rats raided the village. The town then hired a pied piper to come remove the rats, but when the village refused to pay, so he also played and took their children, all but Sam, who was teased and picked on. He was the only one who understood the Piper.

Apprenticed to the Most High Academe of Sanctaphrax, a floating city of scholars, gossip, and treachery, fourteen-year-old Quint runs increasingly dangerous errands, which eventually bring him to a place of gruesome monsters that threaten his life and those of his friends.