old some consciousness, gazing at her with sorrow.
"No!" Edith knelt in the pool of blood that seemed to engulf the entire world, cradling the bloody head to her chest and crying out to the heavens.
------------------------
"No!" With a sudden jolt, the girl awakened from her nightmare.
But in the next moment, she was even more frightened. She felt a head really in her arms, and when she looked down, she saw Andre''s head lying on her blanket, his pale face turned towards her, his golden lashes still slightly trembling.
Edith exclaimed in surprise, quickly letting go of him. It was then that she realised he had been sleeping on the stool next to her bed, his upper body leaning against hers.
Her sharp movement also woke him up. Andre opened his slightly dazed blue eyes, sat up and absently smoothed his blonde hair at the back of the head.
"Ah, you have an addiction to the guillotine, don''t you?" she called out to Andre, annoyed. "Why do you put your head into my arms like that, like under the chopper of Sanson''s?"①
Andre, however, seemed a little aggrieved, "You seemed to be caught in a bad dream just now, and I leaned over to comfort you. But you suddenly held onto my head tightly, and wouldn''t let go. So I had to sleep like that. Your grip is so strong, my neck still hurts a little now."
She noticed the red mark left on his fair neck by her arm. Imagining the scene he described, she laughed.
"Then didn''t you dream of an intimate contact with the guillotine?" she wickedly teased, the shadow of her previous nightmare now gone without a trace.
"No, it''s really unbelievable," Andre replied, playing along. "Seems I was indeed too tired."
Edith sat up and kissed his reddened Adam''s apple. Andre couldn''t help but let out a low moan.
"But how do you also speak of me in such a way, like those journalists?" he complained, holding her close in his arms.
"That''s inevitable," she smirked, poking his chest with her finger. "Rumours, when spread too far, become the truth. Who knows, behind closed doors, you might really be a disciple of the Marquis de Sade, a bloodthirsty devil?"
"You do have the heart to tease me like this. Those rumours are alrea