Red Seas Under Red Skies

As the second installment of the Gentleman Bastard Sequence, the novel follows Locke Lamora, a professional thief and con artist, and his partner Jean Tannen as they juggle dangerous schemes in the city-state of Tal Verrar. Events from the previous novel, The Lies of Locke Lamora, haunt them: the deaths of fellow members of the Gentlemen Bastards, their old thieves' gang, and what Locke did to the Falconer, a sorcerer of the Bondsmagi of Karthain, placing both men on the guild's vengeance list.

The novel opens with a flash-forward. Locke and Jean stand on a pier beside a burning ship, crossbows leveled at two armed men, when Jean suddenly turns his weapon on Locke and demands he surrender. The scene cuts away before resolving.

The narrative then establishes their two-year confidence game. Operating under aliases, Locke and Jean have been cheating their way up the floors of the Sinspire, an exclusive nine-story gambling tower ruled by a man named Requin, whose code is absolute: Cheaters die. They defeat two opponents at a card game by dusting their cards with a soporific powder. Requin's scarred major-domo, Selendri, a woman with a brass prosthetic hand, invites them to the sixth floor, signaling Requin's growing interest.

Flashbacks reveal how they reached Tal Verrar. After fleeing catastrophe in Camorr, Locke sank into suicidal depression in the port town of Vel Virazzo while Jean kept them afloat by taking over a local gang. Jean forced Locke back to action by locking him in his room and daring him to pick the lock. Locke responded with a reckless theft spree, proving his skills remained sharp, and they set out for Tal Verrar.

Locke confesses his cheating to Requin and claims he was hired by an anonymous employer to rob Requin's vault, offering to betray that employer in exchange for Requin's favor. Requin places him on probation. Separately, Locke commissions four ornate chairs built with shear-crescent wood, a deliberately fragile material, and fitted with hidden compartments. Presented to Requin as a gift, the chairs conceal climbing gear and demi-silk rope, an exceptionally strong line, for an eventual heist.

The scheme grows far more complicated when Archon Maxilan Stragos, Tal Verrar's military ruler, kidnaps Locke and Jean. Having received their true identities from the Bondsmagi, Stragos poisons them through doctored goblets, administering a latent toxin for which only he controls the antidote. His demand is clear: They must go to sea and provoke pirate attacks near Tal Verrar, creating a crisis that will justify reasserting his military power over the Priori, the merchant councils that nominally govern the city. Locke and Jean, who know nothing about sailing, have no choice but to comply.

Locke tells Requin that Stragos is the anonymous employer, positioning himself as Requin's double agent, and invents a fictional lockbreaker named Calo Callas to justify his upcoming absence at sea. Now Locke deceives both Stragos and Requin simultaneously, telling each what he wants to hear.

After a month of naval training under Caldris, a veteran sailing master also poisoned by Stragos, Locke and Jean stage a fake mutiny. They steal the ship Red Messenger with a crew of prisoners and sail toward the Ghostwind Isles, a pirate haven. Caldris dies of a heart attack before a major storm, leaving two barely competent sailors in command. The storm batters the ship, and when the crew discovers Locke forgot to bring cats aboard, a serious breach of maritime superstition, they mutiny and set Locke and Jean adrift.

Within hours, the Poison Orchid, a pirate brig captained by Zamira Drakasha, a former naval officer from the nation of Syrune, rescues Locke and Jean. Drakasha assigns them to the scrub watch, the lowest tier of her crew. Her first mate, Lieutenant Ezri Delmastro, takes a growing interest in Jean. They bond over a shared love of the playwright Lucarno and begin a passionate relationship.

When the Orchid attacks a merchant ship, Locke volunteers to board first and kills four Jeremite Redeemers, fanatical religious warriors, through improvisation and luck. Jean then confronts Locke, insisting they cannot betray the pirates to Stragos because these people are fellow thieves bound by the same code. Locke resists but is shaken.

Locke confesses the truth about Stragos's scheme to Drakasha and proposes that she help them stage limited, showy raids near Tal Verrar while they search for an antidote. After consulting a council of pirate captains in Port Prodigal, Drakasha agrees. Captain Jaffrim Rodanov, commanding the powerful Dread Sovereign, is the most opposed. Secretly, Rodanov plants a spy named Utgar aboard the Orchid, equipping him with a shipbane sphere, a devastating alchemical incendiary device.

The Orchid conducts raids near Tal Verrar, and Locke and Jean slip into the city to collect their antidote from Stragos and maintain their cover with Requin. Each visit grows more tense as Stragos demands bloodier results. Mystery assassins attack them repeatedly; Locke eventually discovers that the Bondsmagi tipped off the Priori about their identities, prompting the merchant councils to try to kill them independently.

The novel's earlier flash-forward is resolved: Jean's apparent betrayal on the pier was a ruse. He had flashed a hand signal indicating he was lying, which Locke missed in the darkness, and kills both ambushers with simultaneous crossbow shots.

Rodanov's Dread Sovereign catches the Orchid at sea, forcing a brutal close-quarters battle. At a critical moment, Utgar reveals his treachery by threatening to drop the shipbane sphere into the hold where Drakasha's children are hidden. Scholar Treganne, the Orchid's ship's physiker, shoots Utgar with a crossbow without understanding what the sphere is, and it falls into the hold and ignites. Ezri, knowing the sphere will destroy the ship, punches Jean to stop him from following and leaps into the hold. She retrieves the white-hot sphere with her bare hands and hurls it onto the Dread Sovereign before collapsing, mortally burned. Jean mercy-kills Ezri with a dagger. The Sovereign burns and sinks.

The shattered Orchid limps toward Tal Verrar with 38 survivors. Locke devises a plan to resolve everything in a single night. He and Jean convince Marius Cordo, a senior member of the Priori, to help overthrow the Archonate, Stragos's ruling regime. On the final night, Locke and Jean enter the Sinspire, trick their way into Requin's office, and seal the doors with alchemical cement. They smash the hidden chairs, extract the climbing gear, cut Requin's paintings from their frames, and rappel down the tower. Priori agents disguised as Eyes of the Archon, Stragos's secret police, stage an arrest and smuggle them into the Mon Magisteria, Stragos's palace.

Inside, a Priori agent strikes Stragos down, and Locke demands the permanent antidote from his alchemist. Stragos's agent Merrain suddenly attacks, killing the alchemist with a poisoned blade before more than a single dose can be produced. Locke saves the vial, but Merrain escapes. The Priori seize control of the city. Stragos is handed over to Drakasha, who chains him in the Orchid's hold as a permanent prisoner, a death-offering for Ezri.

In Vel Virazzo, Locke discovers the stolen paintings are reproductions; the originals remain safe in Requin's vault. Their two-year scheme yields only 2,500 solari, the local currency, a pittance. Back in Tal Verrar, Requin leverages the political upheaval to install Selendri as head of a new intelligence service, expanding his power. With only one irreplaceable dose of antidote and two poisoned men, Jean insists Locke drink it. Locke refuses, and they argue until Locke reveals he has already secretly slipped the antidote into Jean's wine. Jean is devastated but cannot undo what Locke has done. The two purchase a small yacht and sail into open water together, Locke facing slow death from the unreversed poison but choosing to spend his remaining time with Jean.