Miri's Pov
It took another full week of staying in the fortress before we finally dragged ourselves back to school. If it had been up to me, I wouldn't have gone back yet. The fortress felt safer, like a nest wrapped around the three of us where no one could intrude, no one could pry, and no one could try to pull Riven away again. But Uncle Lucian had put his foot down. He told us we were already skating on thin ice with how much we'd missed this semester, and even though we didn't plan on graduating at eighteen, we were making it harder and harder to altogether the more we avoided the academy.
He was right, of course. That didn't make me like it any better.
