Red Seas Under Red Skies (Gentleman Bastard, #2)

by Scott Lynch

The Thorn of Camorr had been a mask he’d half-heartedly worn as a game. Now it was almost a separate entity, a hungry thing, an increasingly insistent ghost prying at his resolve to stand up for the mandate of his faith.

‘But if you’re thoroughly in my power, pray tell me, what does that make you?’ ‘Downright embarrassed,’ muttered Locke.

I’d lay even odds that between the people following us and the people hunting us, we’ve become this city’s principal means of employment.

Tal Verrar’s entire economy is now based on fucking with us.’

Smoke boiled out of those hellish cracks in little black eruptions, the last shuddering breaths of a vast wooden beast dying in agony.

Locke mimed shoving a dagger into an invisible Archon of Tal Verrar. It was so satisfying he mimed it again.

‘I have sometimes wondered to myself,’ said Stragos, ‘precisely what it would take to humble you.’ He beckoned the Eye at his right side forward. ‘I have regretfully concluded that it’s probably impossible.’