A fairy-tale fantasy story, about deals made without understanding all the consequences of them, of ice and fire demons. It starts so strong I was sure this was going to be a 5-star for me, but it's narrated in first-person and we switch between (at least) half a dozen different people and frankly some of the characters aren't helping anything much, e.g. when we're following the youngest boy in the story, Stepon, the writing style takes a sharp turn from the preceding narrator to how a relatively-noncommunicative youth would think of what's happening around him. We are left to figure out who the narrator is from context - I read in some other review saying that different people had a different symbol at the start of their sections and if you remembered which symbol corresponded to which person you could keep up more easily. Not a big fan of this mechanism!

But the story, especially the first half and the wrapup, were so much fun I'd still recommend this one no problem. I had a great time with this story!