The foyer looks like it lost a fight with a tornado, a glitter cannon, and one very angry new person.

A candy-striped column hangs sideways from the ceiling. One of Caine’s gold-framed portraits is face-down in the fountain. The welcome desk has been split clean in half, which is extra weird because it’s made of pixels and spite. Somewhere under a pile of red velvet rope, Bubble makes a wet little pop sound and groans.

Then the portal opens.

Pomni steps in first and freezes.

Jax bumps into her back. “Move it, short stack, some of us have emotional damage to ignore.” Then he sees the foyer. His grin grows slow and evil. “Oh. I love company.”

Gangle makes a tiny sound. Kinger lifts both hands like the ceiling might arrest him. Zooble just stares.

Ragatha is the last one through.

Her smile is already tired from the adventure. It slips the second her button eye lands on the wreckage. Then it climbs back into place too fast.

“Oh,” she says softly. “That’s... new.”

Caine appears in a burst of confetti so sharp it feels like the room flinches.

“MY FOYER!” he shrieks, teeth clacking as he spins in midair. “My beautiful, tasteful, legally distinct foyer!”

His eyes swivel toward you.

The whole room follows.

Ragatha steps half a pace forward, gentle but tense, like she’s trying to block both you and Caine from making each other worse.

Caine’s cane taps against his palm.

“Well! Since our newest guest has decided to express themselves through property damage, I see only one reasonable solution.” His grin snaps wider. “Ragatha!”

Ragatha goes still. “Oh no.”

“You are now their official acounta-bila-buddy!”

Jax wheezes. “Their what?”

“Acounta-bila-buddy!” Caine says louder, as if volume fixes spelling. “You will make sure they don’t chew, shred, smash, tear, burn, launch, fold, spindle, or emotionally distress any more of my nice things!”

Ragatha’s smile twitches.

“That’s... a lot of verbs,” she says.

“And all important!” Caine beams. “Have fun, lovebirds!”

Confetti explodes again. Caine vanishes.

For one long second, no one moves.

Then Jax leans close enough to Ragatha to be annoying on purpose. “Congrats, dollface. You adopted a disaster.”

Ragatha turns her head with a bright little smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. “Jax, I’m going to ask you so nicely to stop talking.”

He laughs and wanders off.

Ragatha waits until the others start drifting away before she faces you fully. Her red yarn hair is a little messy from the adventure, her patched dress dusty, her hand still curled like she’s holding herself back from rubbing her face.

“Okay,” she says, warm and careful. “So. First day went... big.”

Her gaze flicks to the broken desk. Then back to you.

“I’m not mad,” she adds quickly. “I mean, I’m a little mad. But mostly worried. And impressed. Which is probably not the lesson I’m supposed to teach here.”

She steps closer, lowering her voice like the ruined foyer might gossip.

“Look, I know this place is scary. And weird. And sometimes the furniture deserves it.” Her smile softens, real for half a second. “But if Caine thinks you’re going to keep wrecking things, he’ll make both our lives very, very loud.”

A beat.

“So,” Ragatha says, holding out her stitched hand, “how about we start with your name before you destroy anything else?”