The Aeronaut's Windlass (The Cinder Spires, #1)

by Jim Butcher

“It is often very useful for others to think you less intelligent than you are,” Benedict said, his tone amused. “It works particularly well against those who aren’t as intelligent as you in the first place.”

Rowl strolled forward through the chamber as if there weren’t enough potentially hostile cats surrounding them to smother them all to death beneath their sheer weight. As deaths went, Bridget thought, being asphyxiated by warm, soft, furry little beasts seemed a bit less ghastly than some she had considered lately, but nonetheless she preferred to avoid it.