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name of your semel?”
    I did want a name, but even more, I wanted to see him. I had an almost desperate need to know what the man looked like. “Yes,” I ground out.
    “It’s Logan Church.”
    I couldn’t breathe.
    “Jin?” Dov rushed forward, hand on my back as I bent over and put my head between my knees. “Are you all right?”
    I would be, yes, the second I could push oxygen again. Straightening up in my seat, I faced him. “So my semel, he’s alive?”
    “Yes.”
    “And when can I—”
    “We’re going to let our semel know that he should reach out to yours.”
    “I can—” I gasped. “—call my semel. I could do it right now if you give me his—”
    “There are protocols,” Dov reminded me.
    Apparently there were rules for everything. “Yes,” I replied hoarsely, flushing hot and cold, jaw clenching, trembling, tears filling my eyes at the surge of feeling, of overwhelming, devouring want. “And tell him to hurry.”
    “Our semel?”
    “No,” I whimpered. “Mine.”
    “I don’t think that will be a problem.”

Chapter 4

     
    I WALKED around in a daze that Wednesday evening. There was still work, and I did that—I was personable and on task, I didn’t let any customers realize I was completely checked out of my own head—but I could not concentrate on anything to save my life.
    Luther showed up and sat at the bar with a couple of his khatyu. I made sure to say hello, and he reminded me that I’d agreed to dinner. I could barely answer him because I kept watch on the door as people came in.
    Logically I knew the flight time from Reno, Nevada—where I lived, apparently—to New Orleans would take an entire day. It was all the way on the other side of the country. I’d checked it on the phone I was given, and the estimates were anywhere from eight hours to eleven, and that was if my semel had gotten on the plane the second Domin Thorne, the akhen-aten, had called him. There was no way he could have. He probably hadn’t even been contacted yet. The truth of the matter was, however, that I was 100 percent thinking about my semel and what he would be like and not at all about anything else. I could not be counted on to even remember what drinks people wanted.
    When I took my break, I went back behind the restaurant, bummed a cigarette off one of the busboys, and leaned against the exposed brick wall in the alley and used my new phone.
    I searched for Logan Church on the Internet, but there was nothing except a link to a glass factory, of all the weird things. On the website for Preserve Glassworks, there was an office number, and since it was only seven where I was—which meant it was five in Nevada—I tried to get someone. It rang and rang and finally went to voice mail. The woman’s voice was clear and resonant, and because I wasn’t sure what to say that wouldn’t sound stupid, I called back three times before I finally just left my name and phone number.
    Grinding out the cigarette, concentrating on not simply leaving to go buy a pack—I was trying really hard not to take up smoking, but I liked the taste, and the act of inhaling and exhaling calmed me—I was almost to the back door when the phone rang.
    “Hello?” I answered quickly.
    Throat clearing. “Hello?”
    “Who’s this?”
    “Jin?” The woman’s voice on the other end broke.
    “Yes.”
    Quick inhale. “This is Delphine.”
    I had no idea if I was supposed to know her or not. “Hi,” I whispered. “Delphine, I’m sorry to bother you, but I’m trying to get in touch with Logan Church.”
    “Yes,” she said softly. “We heard that you… that you don’t have your memory.”
    “Yeah, I… don’t.” I agreed because I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to say. “So Wick and Dov’s semel—”
    “Domin.”
    “Domin,” I parroted. “He called Logan already?”
    “Yes, he did.”
    I coughed. “And so where is your semel now?”
    “He’s my brother,” she clarified. “And he’s on his way to