I can smell her on the breeze before she comes through the gate. Wine and roses and leather and grief. I touch my tongue to my lips and I can taste her heartache in the air. There was a time when such things would have been a aphrodisiac, and I am sure those days will come again. Today though, I can only feel something akin to sympathy.

"Who's there?" I had not moved, so her senses must be sharper than I realized, but she still cannot see me in the darkness. I, on the other hand, can see her clearly; lips pulled back in a snarl and a knife pulled as she spits out a warning. I rise and cross the yard until she can see whom she is threatening.

"You cannot hurt me Wanda," I inform her as come closer, hands out and open to show I am not armed. "but I mean you no harm. Well, not tonight at any rate." I feel compelled to add. I do not want to be bound by a loophole in words after all.