Page 17 of I Regret Nothing
“We’ll see what we can do.”
“Thanks! Maybe we can hang out. I’m bored.”
I hoped she would go be bored somewhere else. This woman was vile.
“You can’t be in here unless you are working. Maybe later,” I said.
“Great. Bye, sexy.”
Venus swayed her hips like she thought she was sexy as she left the mailroom. Like anyone could make our prison jumpsuits sexy. Venus certainly thought she could. As soon as the door closed, we went back to scanning packages. Dakarys hadn’t even looked at the list.
“What are you playing at?”
“Witch games. Isn’t it fun?”
“Not with our thief on the line.”
The door opened again, and Darius slipped in.Nowit made sense. Darius always brought the list from the witches nowadays. We were getting pretty good at figuring out what all the ingredients they asked us to get were meant for. We could even brew some poisons ourselves after chatting with Darius.
“What’s the shit on this list for?” Dakarys said, shoving the list at Darius.
Darius looked over the list and frowned.
“A really nasty poison that not even Astrid will let us use. Who gave you this?”
“Your new witch is causing problems with our new friend Rei. We had an arrangement with Astrid.”
Darius sighed.
“I don’t like her. Astrid called a meeting, and we all agreed to leave Rei alone. Venus agreed too. What do I need to do to get these items?”
We weren’t going to ask him to rat. We’d never do that. But this needed to be handled because Venus was out of control. She was defying the orders of her high priestess and asking us to help her kill Rei.
“You’d better get Astrid out of laundry and into the mailroom, Darius. We had this handled,” I said.
“I’m Astrid’s third. Are you sure you don’t want me to handle this?”
Dakarys looked down at Darius’s list.
“I know what these ingredients are for. Astrid wants a potion to bind a new witch to the coven. That can only be Venus. How would you handle this, Darius?”
Darius sagged.
“I have no idea. If I snapped her neck, I’d just make her a martyr. Several witches agreed with Astrid not to come at Rei, but they didn’t want to. They thought your fox had anything Venus wanted to throw at her coming her way. Your fox is bringing a lot of drama into my coven.”
I let out a little growl. Thiswas notRei’s fault.
“Blame your witch for that. Astrid gave her an order, and she’s the one that can’t drop it.”
“Your foxbither.”
“You’ve met Venus. Can you blame her?”
“No, I guess not. I don’t like her either, and I don’t particularly appreciate that she’s disobeying Astrid. I’ll get Astrid. She’s not going to like this.”
The witches had a monopoly on laundry duty. Astrid fought hard for that, and I had no doubt Venus would join them. They segregated us in our jobs. Since Dakarys and I were the only representations of our kind in Silverhold, they didn’t put us with any of the gangs. There were plenty of us in prisons in other countries, I was sure. They didn’t have anywhere to put us when we transferred. We lucked out with the mailroom. That’s where they put people who didn’t fit. Ireallyhoped Venus didn’t end up here with us because the witches shunned her.
Astrid burst into the mailroom and glared at us.
