The Deepest Secret of THE LIES OF LOCKE LAMORA

If you haven’t read the book, there are spoilers below.

I repeat: There are gigantic spoilers below.

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From Chapter 11: AT THE COURT OF CAPA RAZA:

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Capa Raza, as he now styled himself, bent over Barsavi, who was weak with blood loss, whimpering in pain. Raza reached down and pried the capa’s signet ring from his remaining hand. He held this up for all the crowd to behold, then slid it onto the fourth finger of his own left hand.

“Vencarlo,” said Capa Raza, “ I have waited so long to see you like this. Now your children are dead and your office is passed to me, along with your fortress and your treasure. Every legacy you thought to leave to someone of your name is in my hands. I have erased you from history itself. Does that suit your fancy, scholar? Like an errant chalk mark upon a slate. I have wiped you clean away.

"Do you remember the slow death of your wife? How she trusted your Berangias sisters to the very end? How they would bring her meals to her? She didn’t die of stomach tumors– it was black alchemy. I wanted something to whet my appetite, during the long years I spent building this death for you.” Capa Raza grinned with demonic mirth. “Lingered in pain, didn’t she? Well, it wasn’t an act of the gods, Vencarlo. Like everyone else you loved, she died because of you.”

“Why?” Barsavi’s voice was weak and small.

Capa Raza knelt beside him, cradled his head almost tenderly, and whispered in his ear for several long moments. Barsavi stared up at him when he was finished, jaw slack, eyes wide with disbelief.

“Ethics… in video game JOURNALISM?” coughed Barsavi.

“Yes,” whispered Raza. He yanked Barsavi’s head up and backward by his beards. A stiletto fell into his other hand from within his sleeve, and he rammed it into the underside of Vencarlo Barsavi’s exposed chins. “At last you see… this is really about ethics in video game journalism.”

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