The tea garden was beautifully decorated: Paper chains and lanterns were hung across the trees, the tables had white sheets and the dishes and chairs were all unmatching, yet that somehow added to the charm. There were also tons of playing cards decorations all around the garden. Serena now truly felt like she stepped into the mad hatter's garden. She wouldn't be surprised if the march hare suddenly threw a teacup at her.

Ace and Deuce barely commented on Serena's and Naomi's new looks, and Grim was too distracted by the treats on the table. Cater however immediately flirted with both of them, which they just laughed off.

Just then, trumpets announce the arrival of Riddle. One of the students called out: "All hail our leader, the red sovereign himself... Housewarden Riddle!"

"We salute you, Housewarden Riddle." The other students said in choir.

"What in the cultist hell...?" Serena said under her breath. This seemed a little overboard, but she wasn't going to cause a scene here. Riddle checked if everything was in place, from the red roses to the dormouse in the teapot. Then he called for a toast with their tea cups.

Finally, Ace walked over to Riddle to give him the tart, apologizing for eating the tart the other day.

"Hm? And what kind of tart is it?" Riddle asked.

"I'm so glad you asked! It's a chestnut tart, and I swear, we weren't stingy with the chestnuts." Ace said proudly. However, Riddle completely freaked out over it.

"The Queen of Hearts' rule 562: 'One must never bring a chestnut tart to an unbirthday tea party.'" He recited. "This is an utterly flagrant rule violation! Do you understand what you've done?! You've ruined an otherwise perfect unbirthday!"

Ace and Deuce were stunned. Serena wondered how many rules there even were. Riddle answered that there were 810 rules, and that he had memorized all of them. Then he ordered the tart to be destroyed and for the "rulebreakers" to be thrown out of the dorm.

"Woah there! I don't think we need to go THAT far!" Naomi quickly stepped in. Trey and Cater immediately stepped in as well, taking the blame as they helped with the tart. But Riddle argued that making the tart wasn't the issue, but bringing it here was.

"How about I just bring this tart to the kitchen and we can talk about this later?" Naomi suggested, but Riddle doubled down that it had to be destroyed.

At this point, Serena couldn't keep her mouth shut anymore. "How can you live by such foolish rules?! Can't you see that you're making everyone miserable?!"

Riddle got quiet, dangerously quiet. "What did you just call me? "Foolish"?!"

"I called the rules foolish, but if you're so stuck on following them that might as well apply to you."

"Everyone, stop! Don't dig this hole any deeper!" Cater intervened. "And Riddle, please try to remember that these are new students who've only been here a few days!"

Ace shook his head. "Nah bro, I've got a shovel and I am DIGGING. Throwing away a tart to obey some insane rule is about as foolish as it gets." Deuce agreed with him, getting fed up as well.

Riddle chuckled at their "debate", claiming that breaking even the slightest rule will cause chaos and anarchy. Ace spoke to the other Heartslabyul students, encouraging them to speak up. But they were too scared and agreed with Riddle to avoid getting their magic sealed away.

Riddle boasted about how ever since he became housewarden, not a single student was held back or dropped out, and that he was the best student in the dorm. Hence, he was naturally the most correct.

"It's not off with their heads because I want to do that. I do it because rules must never be broken. If you will not obey me, then I will have all of your heads."

Cater encouraged them to just agree with Riddle to avoid further trouble, but neither Ace, Deuce nor the girls agreed.

"I don't bow to self-important tyrants." Ace said.

"What did you just call me?" Riddle asked indignantly.

"A tyrant. Anyone who needs to use fear and punishment to stay in power, and abuses that power just because they're having a childish temper tantrum, is nothing but a tyrant." Serena said, crossing her arms. "You really are perfect as the housewarden of Heartslabyul, you're just like the Queen of Hearts. And guess what: You will someday be overthrown, just like her."

Riddle completely lost it and screamed "OFF WITH YOUR HEAD!", giving all of them a collar. Then he ordered Cater and Trey to kick them out, which they reluctantly did.

Ace was still angry at Riddle, talking shit about him the whole way. Naomi sighed as she tugged at the collar. Why she and Serena were collared as well was beyond her, all she knew right now was that it made her claustrophobic. "You had to make that comment about the Queen of Hearts, didn't you?" She shot at Serena, who huffed. "Did I lie?"

"But according to the legends, she wasn't a tyrant." Deuce said. "The legends exist in my world as well, except there, she's a tyrant who beheads anyone for the slightest mistake. And I'm not talking about a silly spell, I'm speaking of decapitation."

"...That doesn't sound like a nice legend." Grim said.

Suddenly, a head was floating next to them, giving them all a scare while it laughed. "A ghost head!" Grim exclaimed. The head apologized, then the rest of his body appeared. It was a boy around their age with purple hair and cat ears. He was wearing a loose white shirt with a purple striped shirt underneath, and had many piercings in his ears and some funny rings on his hands.

"The name's Artemiy Artemiyevich Pinker." The cat boy introduced himself. "Am I a cat? Am I a purrrson? A mimsy borogove, perhaps? A mome rath with a knack for magic?"

Ace tried repeating the name, only to fail miserably. The cat boy laughed, telling them that they can just call him Chenya.

"What dorm are you from?" Naomi asked, as they couldn't tell from his clothes. Chenya told them to guess. Grim guessed "Bananaclaw", getting Savannaclaw wrong again. Chenya laughed and told him that was wrong.

Exasperated, Ace told Chenya that he wasn't in the mood for stupid games after what happened with the teapot tyrant.

"Riddle the teapot tyrant... Heh heh. Well, I can't dismiss that perspective as wrong. He's always been quite strict." Chenya chuckled.

Deuce asked him if he knew something about Riddle, to which Chenya only gave a vague answer. Ace asked him how Riddle became such a control freak, and Chenya told them to ask Trey since they're childhood friends. Then he just disappeared into thin air again. With no other leads, they decided that asking Trey was the best course of action right now.