The Smith and the Winter King

Brannoc is a terrible blacksmith. So terrible that when a crowned fox walks into his forge and asks for help, he says yes before he asks why. Why is the Winter King buried in ice with spring locked in a glass globe on his mantelpiece. Why has nobody thawed him in nine hundred years. Why does the fox keep laughing at exactly the wrong moments. To find out, Brannoc must climb the Glass Stair, where the cold speaks in his mother's voice and the last apprentice who tried is still standing halfway up, hammer raised, waiting. A warm, funny, snow-crusted tale about a man who was never good enough to make anything perfect — and the one time that saved a kingdom.