Once she had prepared the breakfast for her owner, she started to clean the kitchen. Not because it was necessary, but to distract herself from the food. She heard her owner coming downstairs. Dr. Evans ate his meal. Maka wondered whether he would take the rag out of her mouth now. She went into the dining room so that he could see her. He quickly looked up from his meal, but went right back to his meal, sipping his tea. She wondered what he was thinking about. Maybe she should make some noise. Or would that be a bad idea? Would she get punished for making noise? Would making noise accomplish anything? Was there anything she could do to get him to let her take the rag out? Maybe she should get on her knees. On the other hand, that didn't work the last time she tried it. She would have to make herself look pitiful. But wasn't she already a very pitiful sight? A hungry and gagged captive who had recently been whipped. Maybe she should try to start crying? But she couldn't cry on command. Maybe all she would have to do was to think of something sad. She thought about her capture. But she still couldn't get herself to cry.

Dr. Evans had finished his meal and went in the direction of his office. Maka picked up the dishes and washed them. After she had finished, there was a knock on the door. Maka, interested in who could be knocking on the door in the early hours of the morning, went to open the door, but also because she was probably supposed to. Her owner was about to open the door, but he saw her, so he stepped back from the door. Maka opened the door for him. On the other side was tidily dressed man with black hair.

"Good day, Mr. Conway", said Dr. Evans, taking out his watch and looking at the time, "On time, like always".

"Good day, Dr. Evans", said Mr. Conway, looking past Dr. Evans at Maka, "I see you got yourself a slave. A rather disobedient one, by the looks of it".

"Yes, yesterday she insulted my neighbor", said Dr. Evans.

"That can probably be cured by a sound trashing", said Mr. Conway.

"Exactly what I did", said Dr. Evans, "Maybe I should get another slave to punish her, my arm is always sore after whipping her". Mr. Conway laughed politely.

"Maybe you could just borrow your neighbor's slave for that", said Mr. Conway.

"Louis is almost never home, in fact, he's going to leave soon", said Dr. Evans. Maka liked how she knew something her owner didn't, it filled her with a smug satisfaction.

"Well, we should talk about my case now", said Mr. Conway.

"Let's go into my office", said Dr. Evans before he led the man into his office. Maka wondered what Mr. Conway was accused of. It couldn't be something too bad, otherwise they wouldn't let him walk around freely. Maybe he was some sort of fraud. Maka began doing the laundry. On the washing machine lay a clean rag. If she had only found this rag yesterday. Altough one rag wouldn't really have been that useful. Meme brought Ms. Nakatsukasa a clean rag and a dirty one, and Ms. Nakatsukasa deliberately chose the dirty one. Her owner would have probably done the same. She went upstairs into her owner's room to collect his dirty clothes. It wasn't really much laundry, so maybe she should wait until there was more laundry there, so she could do it all in one go, thus saving herself time. She would do that.

"Maka", yelled Dr. Evans from his office. Maka hurried into his office, from where he had called her. He was indeed in his office. Maka wondered what she should do now. Normally, she would now say "Yes, master?", but she couldn't say anything right now. Maybe she should get on her knees. But she had already tried that yesterday. She made a small bow.

"Make us coffee", ordered Dr. Evans. What is coffee? How could she prepare coffee if she didn't even know what coffee is. How could she communicate her lack of knowledge to her owner? Maybe she should shrug, as this is a common gesture to show "I don't know". But what if he interpreted it as a sing of defiance. Maybe even open defiance. She didn't want to know what the punishment for that was. But what else should she do? She couldn't go into the kitchen and prepare coffee, as she didn't know what coffee is.

"What are you waiting for?", asked Mr. Conway. She had to say something. No gesture something. But what?

"Do you know what coffee is?", asked Dr. Evans. Maka shook her head, glad that her owner had realized that he had never ordered her to make coffee before.

"I'll explain to you later", said Dr. Evans, before he turned to his client, "how does tea sound?"

"Guess it will have to do", said Mr. Conway. As Maka left to prepare the tea, she could hear them discussing strategy. Maka wondered whether her owner would win the trial for his client. Maka hoped he would. If he won the trial, he would probably be in a good mood. Then he would treat her better, maybe let her go to sleep early. As she brought the two men their tea, they had forgotten to specify what kind of tea they wanted, so she had chosen apple tea, she overheard them talking about the trial.

"That Marie is problematic", said Mr. Conway.

"Slaves can only testify under torture, so it will be easy to manipulate her testimony", said Dr. Evans, "but we still shouldn't rely on it". So the punishment for witnessing a crime was torture. If Maka ever witnessed a crime, she would keep her mouth shut. Who on earth thought tormenting witnesses to a crime was a good idea. As any child could tell you, you only torture subjects, so that they would confess.

"I heard there are exceptions to that rule", said Mr. Conway.

"Yes, if the crime in question is high treason, or the slave is running one of the owner's businesses for him", explained Dr. Evans, "But that second exception only applies if the case is related to the business in question". Maka knew she shouldn't eavesdrop, but what they were talking about was very interesting. Maka knew she had to bring the tea soon, or they would get inpatient, so she opened the door.