The Wonder Engine (Clocktaur War, #2)

by T. Kingfisher

Humans can’t smell.

“Prayer is for the one who prays. It would be a monstrous arrogance to think that my prayers might sway the heart of a god.”

“Politics,” she said. “It doesn’t make any sense. People do the stupidest shit and you want to scream that it’s against their own interests and you never know if they’re playing some deep game you don’t know about or if they’re really just that stupid. Right now, I think we’re having a war because we’ve already got a war, so we might as well keep it.”

“I could be wrong, the Many-Armed God knows, but when I asked him to explain, I think what that means is that he isn’t offended because we’re...um…not able to tell when we’re offending someone. We can’t smell that they’re insulted. So the gnoles don’t take offense because…ah…we can’t be expected to know proper manners.”