He gives us that awful cliffhanger ending to the first half of the book, and then he shifts to an entirely different scene and gives us Sofia and Dona Vorchenza (who is of course secretly the Spider) having tea in a tower, while we don't know if Locke is alive or dead (though we have to assume he's alive, since the book is named after him and there are still quite a few pages left).

This is where Locke's cleverness once again starts to come back to bite him. He had no way of knowing that the noble families had some inkling of how they might possibly get information to the Spider. Normally, as he told the Salvaras, he relies on his victims' embarrassment to keep them quiet, but the Salvaras haven't been embarrassed yet. They think that they're in on the game. So if they get into a conversation with someone who might also know something about that game, they have no reason to keep quiet. Add in Sofia's worries that something is off, and the gang is screwed. Well, they're screwed by the Falconer and the Grey King and Barsavi already, but now we know that when they get out of that, they'll be screwed by the Spider as well.

In Chapter 10, if I'm remembering these correctly, Jean and Bug rescue Locke from the cask of horse urine after fighting off large aquatic spiders, sent to kill them by the Falconer. Thankfully the Falconer is lazy. I mean, I assume the in-universe explanation is that he was needed by the Grey King and couldn't be spared to kill Jean and Bug himself, but we've seen his power. He could have gone down there and finished off both of them in about ten seconds flat, and been on his way. Never trust an aquatic spider to do a bondsmage's job, dude.

Also, I'm not sure how long Locke held his breath, but it felt like forever. Guy's got lungs of steel.

But I guess what the Falconer did with his time was to go to the hideout and kill Calo and Galdo, and then steal all their money. That was another shock, the first time. He sets a trap for Jean, just in case he survives the spiders, and leaves one guy to kill Bug. Why he never considered the idea that if Jean survived, Locke might survive too, I'm not certain. I guess he never counted on Locke's lungs of titanium. But leaving only one guy to kill Bug? Way too efficient, Falconer. Leave two, get the job done right.

Despite my jabs, this was a pretty compelling chapter, and by the end the gang has been decimated. I didn't expect this, given that the entire series is named after them. But three of our main characters are dead, and we're left with Locke and Jean. Defeated, broke, half-dead, alone. No resources, no money, and precious few connections. They burn the elderglass cellar behind them.

Shit just got real. From here onward is easily my favourite part of the book.

As an aside, I'm currently reading Red Seas Under Red Skies, the second book in the series. It's been interesting, because on my first readthrough I remember liking Lies more than Seas; but on this re-read, I'm actually finding it the other way around. Seas is holding up better to a re-read. I'm enjoying the prose and the plot more even though I know what's coming, whereas Lies has suffered a bit without the unexpectedness of the plot behind it. It's not what I was expecting from this reread, but it gives me hope for Republic of Thieves. Because while I used to think that Lynch had taken a step backward after the first book, now I'm starting to come around to the idea that he actually improved, even though I couldn't see it on a first read.