I touched the hilt of the rusty knife at my waist, feeling the notched metal bite into my palm. Kaelen's words hung in the air, competing with the smell of ozone and the distant, wet thuds of Sky-Keep debris hitting the ocean far below.
"I hope so, Kaelen," I said, my voice sounding like it had been dragged through a gravel pit. "I really hope the guy knew what he was doing, because from where I'm standing, we're about ten seconds away from being arrested by people in much shinier armor than us."
"They aren't going to arrest us," Lysandra said, though she didn't sound entirely convinced. She was trying to wipe a streak of grease off her forehead with a battered gauntlet, only to make it worse. She looked at the white-and-gold ships looming over the captured Covenant cruiser. "They're Royal Guard. My father's division. They follow protocol. And protocol says you don't handcuff the people who just stopped a floating island from leveling the harbor."
