Gumiho claws differ slightly from the claws of a regular fox in length and sharpness. However, like the typical Vulpes vulpes, gumiho claws are keratinized modifications of the epidermis and will take, in the case of traumatic breakage or removal, an extended amount of time to grow back. For gumiho with broken claws, a practicing physician may administer a smoothing salve that will round jagged edges and decrease the chances of accidental harm befalling the gumiho from their own appendages. There is not much else to be done but wait for the claws to heal themselves…

Somi’s hands tremble as Kisa looks up at her. “There’s a salve I can make,” she offers, releasing her hands. “It’ll round out the edges so you don’t hurt yourself.”

“What’s the point? We’re all dead here.” The claws disappear, and Somi shakes her head as Kisa attempts to explain that yes, they’re dead, but she’s carried wounds into the afterlife and it really is imperative to treat them for the benefit of the soul’s health. “I’m going to help you find whoever killed Hwanin,” Somi interrupts. “Like I said, Seokga is a really bad detective. And—” She glances up at Kisa’s eyes, glances away. “It’s the least I can do.”

“Absolutely not,” sneers Seokga, but Kisa turns to him with a sharp frown, wishing the trickster god could see—as she does—how extraordinarily beneficial this could be. Somi is, after all, a former serial killer. What better consult to have on the case? She watches in satisfaction as the god pauses, takes a good look at her pointed expression, and sighs. “Fine,” he grinds out, nostrils flaring. “But one wrong move, Somi, and I’ll—” He cuts himself off as Kisa’s eyes narrow even further in warning.

Satisfied with his silence, she turns back to Somi. Kisa isn’t entirely sure what Somi did to her in her past life, but from what she’s been able to decipher, there was friendship—and then a betrayal that somehow played into the Dark Days.

When she’d been a child at the academy, Kisa had harbored a morbid fascination with the Dark Days of 1992, spending hours in the haunted library poring over articles and the heavy novels that had been written since while the resident gwisin read over her shoulder.

Gods, what Kisa would give to be a library ghost.