Chapter 89

Mirabelle’s POV

“Grandpa?” I exclaimed, my voice louder than I intended. “What the hell—why are you out here so late?”

Edward Sylvester, with his ever-calm demeanor, tilted his head toward me from his seat. Even in the dim light, his eyes carried the same warmth that had always comforted me, though they now looked undeniably weary.

“I couldn’t sleep.” He said simply, with his hands resting over his cane.

“You couldn’t sleep, so you decided to sit here in the dark and scare the life out of me?” I asked, trying to sound annoyed, though the relief that it was just him, and not my mind playing tricks, was already flooding through me.

He let out a soft chuckle, the kind that felt like a soothing balm over my tired nerves. “I wasn’t trying to scare you, dear. I was thinking.”

“Thinking?” I echoed, crossing the room and lowering myself into the chair opposite him. “About what?”

He exhaled deeply, leaning back into his seat as if the weight o