Soon after Requin's interrogation, Locke and Jean are captured by the Eyes of the Archon, elite soldiers who work directly for the leader of Tal Verrar - who are under the command of a highly capable woman named Merrain Merrai - and brought to the Mon Magisteria, the capital building of the city. Requin and Selendri grudgingly decide to spare the duo's lives for the time being. He claims to have confessed to the cheating because he is tired of this secondhand connection to their employer, wishing to instead work at the Sinspire.

When brought to Requin and ordered to explain both their actions and his seemingly suicidal confession, Locke claims that they are working for some unknown party who is paying them through proxies to rob his vault. Locke decides to enact the next phase of their plan by revealing to Selendri that they have been cheating. However, throughout the book the Bondsmagi refrain from such direct action, contenting themselves with acting subtly and indirectly against the two. Having such power means that the Bondsmagi could kill the two, by simply possessing them and making them kill each other. But they begin to fear for the success of their scheme when the Bondsmagi of Karthain, speaking through the possessed bodies of night market vendors, threaten revenge against the duo for torturing and mutilating the Falconer. Locke and Jean have been constantly cheating at the games despite this, primarily by manipulating the subtle weaknesses of their gambling opponents, and have gone through many procedures across Tal Verrar and nearby regions to find a way to break into Requin's heavily fortified vault. The establishment, run by a man named Requin and his disfigured lover Selendri, has a policy that anyone caught cheating at the games is to be killed no matter how high-born they may be. Two years after Locke Lamora and Jean Tannen fled Camorr, they have created new secret identities for themselves in the island city of Tal Verrar as professional gamblers at an opulent casino called the Sinspire. It continues the adventures of protagonist Locke Lamora and his friend Jean Tannen as they arrive on the exotic shores of Tal Verrar, where they must face the dangers of their past, as well as new rivals that wish to stop them at all costs while they try to pull their most ambitious con yet.

Red Seas Under Red Skies is a fantasy novel by American writer Scott Lynch, the second book (of a projected seven) in the Gentleman Bastard Sequence series.

Red seas under red skies by scott lynch