Dormitory

The Dormitory is the particular section of Castle Wulfenbach where the Baron keeps the royal and/or Sparky kiddies that he has collected from all over Europa. It is ruled with an iron hand (and not in a velvet glove, either) by the formidable Von Pinn, and all manner of interesting stuff happens there during the early phases of the story.

Background
A long time ago, Klaus, who obviously knows his real-world history, figured something out that the Romans figured out even longer ago: sometimes it's handy to have hostages. He therefore did what he usually does when he sees something as useful: he skipped the negotiations and went out and got some. Kids from Europa's power families got imported to Castle Wulfenbach, under the pretense of helping them learn how to be better adult leaders who would get past the deplorable tendency of past nobles and Sparks to connive and fight each other, rather than do the things a leader is supposed to do. If their presence within the Baron's easy reach persuades their parents not to do things that might lead to them having ... accidents ... while on board, well, all the better.

At least that's the story that Sleipnir O'Hara, one of the dormitory residents, gives a bewildered Agatha Heterodyne when Agatha wakes up there following the unpleasantness in Beetleburg. She should know, as she's one of the older students there -- old enough, in fact, to be not just marriageable but engaged (sort of). Sleipnir spends a brief stint as Agatha's roommate and helpfully shows her the ropes of dormitory life as she tries to adjust.

This approach to pacifying the warring Europan houses isn't perfect, but it works well enough that Klaus (who certainly isn't averse to tearing down an unsuccessful experiment and starting over) has stuck with it as his grip on Europa expands. The oldest students in the dormitory appear to be in their late teens or early twenties; Zulenna Luzhakna, Princess of Holfung-Borzoi, looks even older than that, although her timelessly condescending sneer toward her inferiors (and she believes herself to have a lot of inferiors) makes judging her true age difficult. At the same time, there are lots of small, mostly anonymous children around who could only have been added to the Baron's collection in the last five years or so, since some of them barely appear five years old.