The Wonder Engine (Clocktaur War, #2)

by T. Kingfisher

The first thing they saw when they got into Anuket City was a corpse.

Famous First Lines What

Learned Edmund made a small sound of moral pain.

He understood cities, but he did not wear them like a skin the way that Slate and Brenner did.

“I have one pair that is not more hole than sock. They are taking a well-deserved rest. They are heroes of the sock world.” Caliban put his fist over his heart in tribute.

(Anuket City was nominally a representative democracy, in much the same way that Slate was nominally a taxpayer.)

The perfect gentle knight. She had a strong urge to kick him in the shins.

Caliban’s eyebrows rose. And then he smiled. It was, for a paladin, a very wicked smile.

“Does this mean my genitals are going to fall off?” asked Brenner. “Women of the world, rejoice!” said Caliban, coming back into the room.

One minute he was Caliban, who always looked as if he were beating himself up internally for something, and who always carried a handkerchief. The next minute he was about an inch taller and seemed to be standing in a brighter light than everything else around him. Even his shoulders looked broader.

Pfffff

“How are you not dying right now?” “Pure willpower. I think I ruptured something on the last flight of stairs.” “Poor baby.”

“Gnoles got no princes. No kings, either. Too much trouble.”

At least with mules, one knows where one stands.” “Usually in mule droppings.”

Demons couldn’t do much with unliving things.

Shows what you know.

I would know you anywhere. I would recognize you at the bottom of a mineshaft on a moonless light, if I were deaf and blind.

Night? Or light?

“Mistress Magnus said that she’ll look into it. No one’s heard from him in some time, but that happens fairly frequently with scholars.” “He probably tripped and fell into an index,” whispered Caliban. Slate made a strangled noise.

“Nothing. Allergies. Slate twitched a veil into place.

Typo

“My dear paladin, you won’t find anyone who cares more about a country than its underworld. If the wolves eat all our sheep, where are we going to get mutton?”

Once she was safely back in the hotel, she could do anything she had to do—weep, scream, throw a chair at Caliban’s head. He’d probably even bring me the chair.

“I don’t think you can murder your way out of this for me,” said Slate. “Darlin’, you’d be amazed what I can murder my way out of.”

“I’m an assassin.” “So you say.” “We ooze danger.” “Indeed.” “Women love that.” “How nice.”

“It’s a good plan.” “Thanks.” “I’m coming with you.” “Like hell you are!” “Do you think I don’t know how to act around thieves and ruffians?” “The fact that you even use a word like ‘ruffians’ is not filling me with confidence, no.”

I love them.

In bad light, he might look almost disreputable.

“Bar” was perhaps too kind. This place might aspire to “dive” if it was cleaned up a bit.

“Freelance prostitution is regulated by pimps. Pimps pay protection money to gangs. Gangs report to crime lords. Do I have to explain the entire crime food chain to you? We have to start at the bottom.”

Caliban stared into the middle distance and prayed for death.

Bless this mess.

Brenner had the beatific expression of a man whose dreams have all come true.

Oh god, he’s at parade rest again. Why is this my life?

How dare he tell me about his awful past at a particularly relevant moment? The nerve of the man!

“He was confessing his sins, if you must know.” “For paladins, that’s practically foreplay.”

“Animal, vegetable, or mineral?” asked Slate. “Is it bigger than a breadbox?” asked Brenner.

Forget thievery. They should be a comedy duo.

“My job is making more corpses. The only way I could make less is if I retired early.”

“I am a paladin, not a resurrectionist. This shirt is dead.” “I liked that shirt.” “I can give it last rites. That’s as far as I’ll go.”

“It looks like an explosion in an armor factory.” “I was cleaning my armor.” “If you do that too much, you’ll go blind.

The god picked only the good, the calm, the just. After a few years in the Dreaming God’s service, Caliban suspected that He also only picked the uncomplicated.

Didn’t expect to be an avatar today myself, but that’s what I get for not eating breakfast.”

If I kicked him, he’d apologize for getting in the way of my foot.

Caliban dipped his head, resigned to elite Knight-Champions of the Dreaming God having been relegated to “you people.”

Slate would probably roll her eyes and then punch him as high as she could reach.

Slate’s allergies were legendary. Foremost among them was an allergy to pain.

“Joke’s on you, you bastards,” she muttered. “I’m an accountant. I don’t have an imagination.”

“But I don’t want to be the sensible one,” said the assassin plaintively. “I want to be the one who kills people and gets paid a lot of money.”

I’m going to have a crick in my neck for the next week.” Caliban cleared his throat. “I could rub that for you?” “See, now that wasn’t stupid. Say more things like that.”

“Lead the way,” said Caliban, gesturing. “You just don’t want me to have a clear shot at your back,” said the assassin, as he followed after the others. “You are correct,” said the paladin, and brought up the rear.

“Grimehug, as near as I can tell, thinks of us as something between a smart horse and a very dim child.” Slate laughed. “Given the way things are going, I can’t say he’s wrong in that assessment…”

“Speak for yourself, darlin’. I’ve got a trick or two left up my sleeve.”

Brenner is gonna die, isn't he?

“I am trying not to think about that, thank you.” “What, our relationship?” “No, that you’re currently wrapped in a burial shroud and I’m about to drop a corpse on top of you.” “Oh, that.”

“That’s not good,” drawled Brenner. There was something steadying about how he said it. Assassins were hard people to impress. Brenner sounded as if he had discovered that he was out of cigarettes.

No matter how many times it trips you up, you are still so proud that you think a god should apologize to you. Do you apologize to your sword, when you set it aside, then take it up again?

The paladin turned to her, bloody sword in his hand. “Come on,” he said. “Brenner bought us some time. Let’s go.”

Called it.

So why am I so goddamn angry?

She needs to forgive Brenner, not Cal.