The creature stopped at the threshold of the door leading to the living room once the tour of Victoria's apartment had concluded, taking a look around. They had finally arrived at the scientist's home in Ingolstadt, but even though they had been there for more than half an hour, Victoria seemed not to fully believe the place where she was standing. In truth, and despite Évelyne remaining silent most of the time, such intense scrutiny was beginning to make Victoria nervous.

"I didn't remember you living..." Évelyne began finally but didn't finish her sentence, as she was immediately interrupted.

"No, I used to live in a house in a different neighborhood. But in the end, for one reason or another, I decided to change my address," Victoria explained. After a brief pause, anticipating that the monster might want to know the reasons, she added, "It's more convenient. This apartment is located right in the center, so you can walk anywhere. Whether it's to the university, work, or any store for groceries you can think of."

Yes, that was indeed one of the reasons she had chosen the place, but not the only one and certainly not the first. Two years ago, after her creation faded away, and she suffered from an anxious crisis that lasted for months, Victoria found that she could no longer continue living in the same house. It wasn't that the house itself was a problem, but rather the basement where she had set up her laboratory. How many nightmares had she had in that same setting since her experiment had successfully concluded!

When she felt strong enough to leave her bed, she thought the wisest thing to do was to clear the place. She had no intention of returning to science, or at least not to the part concerning creating another human being. But she found that she couldn't set foot in the basement without feeling the same anguish that had paralyzed her for weeks. No, she couldn't dismantle the laboratory she had set up. And she couldn't ask Henry to do it either, for fear that he might find something compromising that she had left there absentmindedly and then be forced to confess everything.

If only she could burn the room and let everything be consumed by flames! But, like in the apartment, she was renting this space too. She couldn't damage anything, so in the end, she paid a handful of vagabonds to get rid of all the materials. A task they willingly performed upon learning that, if they wanted, they could keep the items they liked. Once out of her basement, Victoria didn't care where those items ended up.

Regardless, and discounting what might be useful for sleeping or had potential for resale at the local fair, most of those things would end up in a landfill. Or disassembled piece by piece, with a view to selling them to some manufacturer of something entirely unrelated to the original purpose for which they were created.

In any case, shortly after emptying her basement and coinciding with Henry's suggestion to take a couple of trips to clear her mind after recovering from her illness, Victoria paid the remaining rent and returned her keys, vowing not to return.

The next time she arrived in Ingolstadt was to stay in the same apartment they were in now.

"Do you not have a laboratory anymore?" Évelyne inquired.

The answer should be obvious, even without knowing the context mentioned earlier, as they had toured the entire apartment, and there was not a single room that even remotely corresponded to the idea anyone would have of a laboratory. Nevertheless, Évelyne wanted to ask because she couldn't trust that Victoria wasn't hiding an extra room somewhere, keeping a secret she didn't want to be discovered.

"As you can see, the house is too small to dedicate a whole room to such a purpose. So the answer is no, you won't find anything similar around here," Victoria said, noticing that Évelyne didn't seem very convinced. She added, "Although, if you don't believe me, you can always feel the walls for a secret chamber. I won't stop you. I'll just ask you, in any case, to try not to disturb the neighbors."

"But are there more people living in the building?" The anxiety in Évelyne's tone indicated that she wasn't fond of that idea.

"Yes, both above and below. But don't worry too much; most people in these big cities are so focused on themselves that they don't have time to worry about the person living next door. If you don't bother them, they won't even look at you."

"I guess they're all the same, right? I mean, taking care of their own affairs and not bothering to glance at the person they have next door. Even if they're just a few meters away."

It was clear whom she was thinking of when she said this, so Victoria pointed out, "Some are like that, others are just incompetent. One thing is to have paid for a property, ensuring that no one interferes with it and making sure that doesn't happen. Another thing is to own a whole farm and live a year without knowing that there's an intruder in it because you're stupid enough not to enter a certain room during that period."

"You're too harsh on them. We're talking about a barn; they didn't even have anything useful to do in there. There was nothing, not even livestock."

"It was still their property and, therefore, their responsibility."

"Do you tend to disapprove of anyone who doesn't act or think according to your criteria, or...?"

"Is it just to be contrary?" she probably would have finished that way. In the weeks they had been together, they never engaged in any strong arguments, but that didn't mean each of them didn't have their own deeply rooted convictions and took the opportunity to make them known.

"Is that the impression I give? Ah, it's not that I disapprove... Or maybe I do, in any case, they have every right to act as they please, regardless of what I think."

"Of course."

"Now, back to the topic of our imminent coexistence, I think it's appropriate to go over some rules: First of all, you're not here as a prisoner, but you're not a guest either. What do I mean by this? I have no intention of restricting your movements. If you want to go out, you can. However, you will have a set of responsibilities within these walls, and if you go anywhere, it would be appreciated if you kept me informed."

"For just in case the authorities stop you, know which police station to pick you up from," Victoria thought about adding, but she chose to omit that part. It was curious, but in all this time, Évelyne hadn't faced any witch hunt, despite her uncommon appearance. It was likely that the veil she had gotten used to wearing for the past couple of weeks, hiding part of her face, along with her discreet attitude, worked to keep people from noticing her. In fact, in that month, at most, she might have received some rude comments from a child. There were no desperate escapes or, much less, violent incidents.

"What kind of responsibilities?" Évelyne asked.

"Household chores, mostly. Nothing too complicated. When I lived in my previous house, I had a cook and a maid who took care of the food and cleaning, respectively. But back then, the workspace was considerably larger, and I was too busy to handle those things..."

"So you want me to be your maid."

"No, I was thinking of something more equitable, like sharing the tasks. You clean up after yourself, and things like that. What I'm sure of is that I'm not going to make you cook for me because, even though we've coexisted harmoniously so far, I don't trust you enough to believe you won't try to poison me... even unintentionally."

"I could say the same, couldn't I? Just because you haven't gotten rid of me before doesn't mean you couldn't do it now."

Évelyne had mentioned this before, during the journey. Despite giving her more freedom than a common prisoner, Victoria didn't trust her enough to give her responsibilities that involved putting herself in a possible, though moderate, danger.

"Although the idea is tempting, it would be a bit complicated to get rid of you in this apartment," Victoria reflected, thinking that even though the neighbors didn't bother her too much, they wouldn't stay quiet if they noticed someone dragging a corpse downstairs one of those days. "But well, anyway, I don't have much time to cook. I usually eat out or bring something already prepared. And if you still don't trust that, you can always cook your own lunch... Ah, but with supervision. I don't want another fire."

The creature didn't say anything in response to this acknowledgment, though she seemed upset. The first and only time she had started a fire, she had done it on purpose. She might not have experienced many things in her short existence, but she didn't consider herself that clumsy.

Once everything related to the house was clarified, the scientist briefly commented on her own schedule and what she expected from Évelyne in this new situation. Apparently, there was a reason why Victoria spent little time in the kitchen or even in the apartment itself. In the mornings, she usually got up early to attend university, where she attended lectures and met with a couple of known professors who assisted her in her own research. Lunch was spent on campus or, to be more precise, in the streets around the campus, always frequenting the same cafeterias.

Victoria was a creature of habit, and after a long morning and part of the afternoon dedicated to her studies, when she returned to her apartment, she didn't feel like doing anything other than eating something, the minimum to stay alive, and going to sleep. Hence, most of the time, she bought something on the way back.

"Why don't you hire someone to clean again?" Évelyne had asked afterward, not just because of Victoria's previous property history, but because anyone could see that the apartment was a bit messy, with books and other objects arranged in any corner, completely misplaced.

"Because I knew you were coming, and you would have plenty of time to rearrange things," Victoria joked, although it was obvious that the creature would take it seriously.

"Isn't everything you've given me to do enough?"

With the review of her own schedule, Victoria had also taken the opportunity to leave a stack of books for Évelyne to read and memorize in her absence. According to her, this would provide her with the necessary knowledge for the near future, a step forward in her attempt to introduce her to a society to which she still felt like a stranger.

The idea was for the creature to learn as much as possible during the day, and then, if there were any doubts or if some concepts needed clarification, Victoria would use her free time to explain them better. However, the number of books that Victoria had left for Évelyne on the table was more than a dozen, and no matter how much the monster trusted her ability to decipher writings made by other humans, reading all of that would take her a few weeks if not months.

"Would you then be interested in me hiring someone again for cleaning and the like?"

"I'd prefer not to," Évelyne didn't think much about it. She might not like the idea of having her day overly occupied with household chores and her own studies, but she was even less attracted to the possibility of a third and unknown person walking around the place she inhabited.

"Good, because I don't think I have the funds to hire someone again. Also, what I said before was a joke, at least in part. If you mess something up, you have to clean it. But if you see that the place is already a mess in itself... Well, you can do whatever you want. Clean it or leave it as it is, that depends on how much you mind living in a place where disorder reigns. What is certain is that my room is off-limits."

Would that be where she hid her materials for recent experiments? One didn't have to be very intelligent to deduce that this was the question Évelyne was now pondering. During the apartment tour, when they passed by her door, Victoria had only stopped for a moment to point out that it was her room and that the creature was prohibited from entering. She didn't open the door to show it, nor did she give any indication of wanting to allow entry, even for a minute.

"I won't lock the door when I leave," the scientist continued, referring to that forbidden room, "but I'll trust you not to enter. Lastly, one more thing."

Before Évelyne could ask, a set of keys surprisingly similar to the ones Victoria had used before to unlock the apartment entrance landed in her hands.

"Are you giving them to me seriously?"

The creature couldn't believe it; this was like a free pass to enter and leave the building whenever she wanted.

"With the condition that if you go out, you're back no later than nine in the evening. Oh, and no going around stealing or trying to harm anyone. I don't want problems with the police, nor do I want late-night interrogations. We haven't had any altercations with anyone so far, so please, let's continue to keep the peace."

In truth, the deal Victoria was proposing didn't resemble much of what she had initially suggested when they began talking about moving to Ingolstadt. Évelyne could imagine, based on her words, that her creator would want to compensate her for the suffering by accepting her in some way into her circle of acquaintances and spending time with her.

Instead, what was being proposed here was more like a cold roommate agreement. An arrangement where each had their own life and carried it out without interfering in the affairs of the other.

It wasn't a bad arrangement, to be honest. Évelyne, who had already been prepared for the worst throughout that journey—such as a group of men appearing out of nowhere and dragging her to some sordid laboratory to conduct more experiments—couldn't complain.