Slowly, with Hajun’s light, kind teasing, Kisa’s mood begins to rise. By the time the clinic is flooded with gwisin (who, despite being dead, are still capable of vomiting from seasickness), Kisa has managed to lose herself in her tasks, pushing her disastrous meeting with Seokga from her mind.

It’s what she’s always done, burying her emotions in work. It’s what made her such a brilliant shaman, why the SH Magical Maternity Unit had a mortality rate lower than .02 percent. Gods, how Kisa misses being a shaman. Samsin Halmoni’s patronage, and gifted powers, ended the moment she died. The goddess has no use for dead shamans.

The loss of it, that power, was debilitating at first. Like learning to walk again with only one leg. Kisa has learned to stumble and hop, but there is a dry, empty well within her where her shamanic magic used to gather and grow.

Up to her elbows in seasick gwisin and determinedly compartmentalizing her emotions into little boxes on a shelf, Kisa hardly notices the woman who practically sashays into the med bay, grinning with teeth stained blue with blood. It’s only when Hajun, having walked over to the woman with a correct amount of trepidation, politely inquires how he can help her that Kisa snaps to attention and hurries out of the small patient room (where a man is dry-heaving into a bucket) and into the clinic’s foyer.

“What, uh, um, happened to you?” Hajun eloquently asks through a terrified smile that still somehow manages to be sweet and concerned.

Kisa narrows her eyes. “Who did you try to eat?” she inquires sternly, having already noted the woman’s small white canines and the distinctly unhinged look in her eyes. Gumiho. It’s a problem on board: Unruly gumiho crew members (placed on the Flatliner as punishment for murder) will try to steal souls through their usual method of kissing. They’ll soon realize it’s impossible: Everyone on here is a soul. After realizing that, they’ll shift into their fox forms and try to directly eat their victim.

But the woman isn’t dressed in uniform. She’s wearing a vintage black peacoat, curly black hair chopped into a distinctly French bob, feet slipped into Jimmy Choos. An Unruly gumiho—but not a crew member? Warily, Kisa watches as the guest smiles.

“Some old banker,” she says, wincing, a hand fluttering to her stomach. “He got away. You might want to expect a patient with a big bite mark sometime soon. I don’t feel all that great now, unfortunately. Do you have any Tums?”

Hajun backs away. “Please don’t eat me,” he whispers.

The woman tilts her head, looking at him. “You’re too pretty to eat,” she says and—to Kisa’s shock—Hajun blushes before hurrying over to one of the seasick patients.