Free [Gentlemen Bastards 02] Red Seas Under Read Skies by Scott Lynch

a big one, and I’ll teach you poor little bastards how to cook, too. You can’t beat Camorr for chefs; even the thieves are chefs back there. I had years of training.”
    He stared around at the increasingly well-maintained tannery, at the increasingly eager band of young thieves living in it, and he spoke wistfully to himself. “We all did.”
    He’d tried to interest Locke in the project of the Brass Coves, but had been rebuffed. That night he tried again, explaining about their ever-increasing nightly take, their headquarters, the tips and training he was giving them. Locke stared at him for a long time, sitting on the bed with a chipped glass half-full of purple wine in his hands.
    “Well,” he said at last. “Well, I can see you’ve found your replacements, haven’t you?”
    Jean was too startled to say anything. Locke drained his glass and continued, his voice flat and humorless.
    “That was certainly quick. Quicker than I expected. A new gang, a new burrow. Not a glass one, but you can probably fix that if you look around long enough. So here you are, playing Father Chains, lighting a fire under that kettle of happy horse-shit all over again.”
    Jean exploded across the room and slapped the empty glass out of Locke’s hand; it shattered against the wall and showered half the room with glittering fragments, but Locke didn’t even blink. Instead, he leaned back against his sweat-stained pillows and sighed.
    “Got any twins yet? How about a new Sabetha? A new me ?”
    “To hell with you!” Jean clenched his fists until he could feel the warm, slick blood seeping out beneath his nails. “To hell with you, Locke! I didn’t save your gods-damned life so you could sulk in this gods-damned hovel and pretend you’re the man who invented grief. You’re not that gods-damned special!”
    “Why did you save me then, Saint Jean?”
    “Of all the stupid fucking questions—”
    “Why?” Locke heaved himself up off the bed and shook his fists at Jean; the effect would have been comical, but all the murder in the world was in his eyes. “I told you to leave me! Am I supposed to be grateful for this? This bloody room?”
    “I didn’t make this room your whole world, Locke. You did.”
    “ This is what I was rescued for? Three weeks sick at sea, and now Vel Virazzo, asshole of Tal Verrar? It’s the joke of the gods, and I’m the punch-line. Dying with the Gray King was better. I told you to fucking leave me there!
    “And I miss them,” he said, his voice nearly a whisper. “Gods, I miss them. It’s my fault they’re dead. I can’t…I can’t stand it….”
    “Don’t you dare,” growled Jean.
    He shoved Locke in the chest, forcefully. Locke fell backward across his bed and hit the wall of the room hard enough to rattle the window shutters.
    “Don’t you dare use them as an excuse for what you’re doing to yourself! Don’t you fucking dare .”
    Without another word, Jean spun on his heels, walked out the door, and slammed it behind him.
    5
    LOCKE SANK down against the bed, put his face in his hands, and listened to the creak of Jean’s footsteps recede from the hall outside.
    To his surprise, that creak returned a few minutes later, growing steadily louder. Jean threw the door open, face grim, and marched directly over to Locke with a tall wooden bucket of water in his hands. Without warning, he threw this all over Locke, who gasped in surprise and fell backward against the wall again. He shook his head like a dog and pushed his sopping hair out of his eyes.
    “Jean, are you out of your fucking—”
    “You needed a bath,” Jean interrupted. “You were covered in self-pity.”
    He threw the bucket down and moved around the room, plucking up any bottle or wineskin that still contained liquid. He was finished before Locke realized what he was doing; he then swiped Locke’s coin purse from the room’s little table and tossed a thin leather package down in its place.
    “Hey, Jean, Jean, you