THE NEXT MORNING WE GET UP so early, it’s still dark out. To be honest, I’ve hardly slept, because I’ve been so nervous. When I did sleep, I dreamed Hattie and I had opened our own healing practice complete with yoga lessons, barley-grass shots, and poolside meditation. The whole shebang. It was actually the perfect dream until the clinic got attacked by evil dokkaebi goblins who killed everyone in their sleep. So uh, yeah—not the best night.

Eomma and Appa are still asleep, and we pop our heads in their door.

“We’re just taking Mong for a walk,” I call out, my voice all shaky.

“We’re gonna go the long route, so we may be a while,” Hattie adds.

They mumble something sleepy and indecipherable from their bed and we quickly close the door before they can ask any questions.

We give the door-sin some nice compliments as we leave the house with Mong (who is looking rather surprised by this early morning walk), and we pause on the porch to make sure we’ve got everything we need.

“Lock of Eomma’s hair?” Hattie asks, looking down at the checklist on her phone.

“Check.” I tap the wadded tissue in my pocket. It was easier than I thought to cut off a bit while Eomma was sleeping. She won’t even notice it’s gone.

“Keys to the clinic?”

“Check.” They were on the kitchen bench, where they’re usually kept.

“Box of matches?”

“Check. And do you have the list of possible passwords?”

Hattie nods. “Check. They’re on my Notes app.”

“What about the tears?”

She holds up a small glass vial with the precious drops inside. “Yep, thanks to Emmett.”

Last night we’d invited Eomma to our K-drama binge, which she’d happily accepted. Then we’d suggested we rewatch the final episode of her favorite series, Stairway to Heaven. It’s super old and cheesy, about a woman who gets amnesia and forgets her first love and then goes blind. She gets new eyes donated by this other dude who falls in love with her. Super OTT and total eye roll, but Eomma loves it. And Emmett knew that it would make her cry, because it always does. That’s when Hattie and I had kindly offered her a handkerchief, like the good daughters we are. After that, all we’d had to do was wring the moisture into a vial. Easy as that.

“He’s kind of a genius, isn’t he?” Hattie says.

I grin. “And he knows it.”

When we get to the clinic, the sun is just starting to rise above the horizon, and Emmett is nowhere to be found.

“Where is he?” Hattie asks, checking the time on her phone. “He’s late.”

“He’s always late.” For all his great qualities, punctuality is not one of them.

“Pssst!”