“We’re here to unlock your restraints,” the male said. He was a skinny kid, cursed through genetics with a very unfortunate nose, bent to the side like he’d slept with all of his weight on the poor thing every night of his life. “You’ll be free to use the attached bathroom, and they’re going to serve a meal soon. Just don’t do anything weird or stupid and we won’t lock you up again. They told us to tell you that we’re all on the same side, here.”

“Wow,” Sadina replied. “Yeah, sure feels like that’s the case.”

Trish elbowed her. Isaac agreed with the sentiment. Get unchained first, then be a smart aleck. He’d learned a few things during the last month of being someone’s captive, enough to know that anyone can be manipulated through subtlety and patience. On both sides.

The two guards—that’s the word that popped into Isaac’s mind to describe them, dressed as they were, with keys to their chains—came over to the small beds, now looking three feet taller as they stood there. Both of them had short hair, or hair slicked underneath the black caps that they wore, it was hard to tell. The girl had a stern look on her face, as if she really hated her job, and when she tilted her head one way, Isaac could see that her hair was actually bright orange. Now that was something he’d never seen before.

The boy, stern enough but a downright gentleman compared to his partner, bent over and quickly set about unlocking the shackles with a long metal key. Clicks and clacks replaced the silence as he worked at it, his awkwardly crooked nose not always moving in the same direction as the rest of his body.

“You guys have names?” Trish asked.

“No,” the girl snapped. But then the boy answered in a sad, reserved manner. “No, we don’t have names. Not yet, anyway. We’re Orphans, and we’re all one and the same.” He had finished Trish and Sadina, and now moved to work on Isaac’s restraints.

To his surprise, the girl’s entire demeanor changed in an instant, sporting a devious smile and an excitement in her eyes. “You can call me Orange. That’s what your friend, the Orphan, calls me. And he calls this guy Skinny because calling him Nose would’ve really hurt his feelings.”