He switched sides, pulling Beaumont’s good arm over his shoulder, even as the boy tried to push his hands away. “I don’t need your help,” he mumbled, but his words were slurred. “I’m fine.” And then his eyes rolled up in his head, his lashes fluttered, and he went limp against Flynn.

“Shit,” Flynn swore again. “Shit, shit, shit.” How badly had Beaumont been cut? He couldn’t see how deep it went. Stitches might be enough to fix it. Provided it didn’t go putrid. Provided infection didn’t spread down his arm. Provided Beaumont didn’t subside into a fever and waste away. Flynn had seen that before. More times than he cared to remember and from wounds that had looked completely innocent at first.

Fear—real fear—coursed through him. He bent and scooped the boy up into his arms, thinking that he wasn’t as heavy as he expected. Flynn hurried toward the spire of St. Michael’s, trying not to jar the boy too much.

He reached the grounds and hesitated briefly, wondering if he should alert Lisbon. No, that could wait. And there was no guarantee that Lisbon wouldn’t insist on summoning a doctor. The sort that poked and prodded with their lancets, drained more blood, and generally made a bad situation worse. Flynn might not be a surgeon or a physician, but he had treated knife wounds more times than he cared to remember, and he trusted himself more than the quacks he had seen in action. After all these years, he still kept a kit in his belongings that contained everything he needed to treat such wounds.

That decided, he veered in the direction of their studio. He crashed through the door, kicking it shut against the cold with his foot, and hurried to Beaumont’s room, laying the boy on the bed with as much care as he could manage. He left Beaumont just long enough to fetch both the lanterns from the studio floor and set them on the tiny washstand, dragging it closer to the bed.

Beaumont was pale, a scrape on his temple Flynn hadn’t noticed before slowly leaking blood. But he wasn’t worried about that. He needed to see what sort of real damage had been done to the boy’s shoulder. Flynn’s fingers fumbled first with his scarf, pulling it away, before attacking the buttons of Beaumont’s baggy coat, and he shoved it open. As gently as he could, Flynn eased his good arm out of its sleeve, rolling him over slightly so he could pull the coat out from under him and away from his left.

The boy groaned slightly but didn’t open his eyes.