The Wonder Engine (Clocktaur War, #2)

by T. Kingfisher

“Take—oh—crazy. You know he says that a lot?” “I’d noticed,” said Slate dryly. “Yes, well. The thing is that in gnolespeech, he’d be saying twenty different words. The vocal component is only part of it. The rest is in the ears and the whiskers and the posture and maybe some other things I don’t know how to ask about. But because we only recognize the spoken word, we don’t understand all the nuance.” He picked up a sheet of parchment from the table. “I started trying to write down all the meanings the other night. He told me as many as he could. Actually, he told me I was crazy trying to write it all down, but with ears up and whiskers forward, which means ‘doing something silly,’ and I think there might have been another nuance that I didn’t catch that said he was going to humor me. And a word that means so far in love that your behavior is irrational, and a word that means drunk or intoxicated on drugs. And when he says ‘Humans are crazy,’ that’s another word that means ‘doing things that make no sense to gnoles but presumably make sense to humans.’ But when he calls you Crazy Slate, that means that he thinks you’re brave but—ah—not sensibly so—” “Completely nuts,” said Brenner. “That’s the impression I got, yes,” admitted Learned Edmund. “It’s a compliment, sort of, but also a warning to other people that you don’t always act in your own best interest.” Slate rubbed her hand over her face. Naturally Grimehug was warning other gnoles against her. That was only sensible. ...