The Gospel of Sheba by Lyndsay Faye

bandaging.
    Laughing, I gave them a small wave. “I appreciate the vote of confidence, gentlemen. As well as the assistance.”
    â€œWon’t you stay for another brandy?” Watson asked in a measured tone as I donned my coat.
    He wanted only to cheer and reassure me, but I didn’t find myself in a very expansive humour any longer despite his gracious intentions. For of course, there is no cure whatsoever for aconitine poisoning. There is only rest, and will, and perhaps fate.
    â€œI must be getting home—my daughter will be worried,” I said.
    â€œIt was a pleasure,” said Mr. Holmes. Strangely enough, he sounded sincere. “Get some rest, my good man, and I shall see to the remainder.”
    I took my leave of the pair, and—living in the West End a very short distance from Baker Street indeed—chose to walk home. As I strolled, I thought of the architects who had built the houses I passed. The impressive stone facades, the careful masonry, the uniformity of the scarlet bricks. Did those paying to erect the grand townhouses, I wondered, spare any thought towards the actual makers? The men with rock-steady grips and calloused fingers? Did capitalists of Scovil’s sort see beauty in work and skill, or was everything denuded into pounds and pence? If the latter, how could they live that way?
    Not that I’d any sound advice to offer regarding how to live life, apparently.
    Constructing a house is a craft, I concluded as I walked, one boot before the other, in a sort of trace. Constructing a life, meanwhile, is an art, and one I’d apparently lost the knack of. And could I countenance shaping a human —a living, breathing human called Grace, who’d survived an acute bout of croup at age two thanks only to her mother’s ferocity and my mute, terrified assistance—alongside someone who clearly didn’t love me and had perhaps never intended to do so?
    The biting wind filled my nostrils with an ephemeral bitterness, and the occasional harmless raindrop all but lashed against my skin. I was in a vicious mood, I recognize now, and a dangerous one.
    For the first time in my life, I wanted to hurt somebody.
    So, as any sublibrarian would do, I categorized the sensation.
    What sort of hurt was I after, exactly? A senseless public house brawl soon forgotten? A rash act harming my own person? A delicious personal revenge?
    Then the word divorce hit me like a physical slap.
    An ugly event, divorce—a rare one, and still uglier for being so rare. Were more people officially divided, one might not be so very shamed by it. I could never put Lettie through such a trial, I comprehended in that moment. I was still in love with her, after all. Her sideways smile understood my jokes too well, and her top notes were too pure for me to throw her out upon the unpoetic streets.
    No, I realized. That premise was grossly incomplete. I would never put Grace through such a thing. No matter who her mother was, or where for that matter.
    An arrangement will have to be made.
    I’ve just arrived home, and all the house is asleep. For some reason, I’ve pulled The Gospel of Sheba out of its covering and brought it with me as I retire to bed. The spells are absurd, the propositions either dreadful or ridiculous despite the elegance of the Latin used, and ceremonial magic is all comprehensive nonsense anyhow.
    Nevertheless. The book is a marvel. It is a very old copy of very old spells made by a long-dead scholar, even if the Queen of Sheba had nothing to do with its provenance.
    But what if she had? What if an African queen, arrayed in scarlet and purple and orange silks, skin oiled until it shone brighter than the gold dripping from her every appendage, heard a rumour of another monarch far away who loved knowledge the way other men loved gemstones? What if she scryed him in a polished quartz and saw in him her double, though they ruled two distant lands, and knew she had to