House of Darken (Secret Keepers #1)(49)

“So … all of you are rich?” I said, half envious, half impressed with their setup here on Earth. “Couldn’t you have just gotten by with your exceptional good looks and photographic memories?”

Jero chuckled. “I’ll take the good looks, but photographic memory is not one of our gifts.”

“So the no books thing…?” I’d asked him before, but I wanted more explanation.

Lexen opened the door for me, which had me a little stunned, but … I also liked that he’d done something thoughtful.

“We have already completed all of our schooling,” he said as I climbed into the passenger seat. “We’re older than you, in a way. Therefore we’re not learning anything new. This is just to keep up appearances.”

“How are you older in a way?” I asked, when all of the Darkens were inside the vehicle.

They exchanged a smile like I was missing out on an inside joke. I hated when people did that. So freaking rude.

“We’re … older than you, that’s all you need to know.”

Fact of the day: Lexen was a dick.

“Why would your age be a secret?” I said, my tone filled with derision. “I mean, seriously, why the hell would I care if you’re old?”

Lexen tilted his head, flashing me one of his very rare grins. “Why are you asking if you don’t care?”

I bit back my frustrated scream.

“I’m fifty-five in human years,” Star cut in, shooting her brother a narrow-eyed look. “I’m the youngest.”

What. The. Freak?

“Fifty-five?” I repeated, trying to wrap my head around what she was saying. She looked younger than me. “So, I’m going to guess that Daelighters age differently to humans?”

Four head nods. Marsil filled me in: “We stop aging once we reach maturity.”

“You don’t age?” I almost collapsed against the shiny door of Lexen’s car. “My human brain can’t compute that sort of information.” I mean, did they die? Or were they immortal?

“Hence why we don’t talk about our age,” Lexen said with a shake of his head, starting the car.

I could sense Lexen’s urgency to get going, so I wasted no more time on questions. I buckled myself in. As soon as my belt clicked, we took off in a squeal of tires. I gripped the door, because Lexen was channeling a racecar driver on the way home, foot flat to floor, weaving in and out of traffic.

“Please remember that one of us is human,” I griped, my knuckles aching from the death grip I had on my handhold.

Lexen just laughed, the carefree sound mildly distracting me from my fear. “You’re safe, little human. I can handle her.”

I muttered about boys and their toys, closing my eyes for the rest of the way. Lucky there weren’t a lot of cars on the road. Well, except for all of the aliens following us. When we reached Daelight Crescent, the huge gates were already open and Lexen flew down the road, pulling into his driveway. We all piled out, and I realized that we weren’t going inside at all. Great, I was going to be stuck in my gym uniform.

Even worse, I would have to use that swirly light thing that Star had emerged from.

As though she had heard my worries, Star popped up beside me. “Don’t be nervous,” she told me. “It doesn’t hurt. The portal between our worlds is linked strongly at this gateway. You just need to step through and you’ll be on the other side.”

“More or less,” Marsil said, patting me on the shoulder.

I looked between the two of them. “Well, is it more or is it less? Because I’m not feeling very confident with that answer.”

They both shrugged and I bit back an angry retort. When I got nervous, I turned into an asshole. I was working on it. Among my many other faults.

“House of Darken takes the first light beam home, so we need to hurry.” Lexen was already walking, his words drifting back to us.

Star moved then, dragging me along; she was surprisingly strong. Then we were all hurrying. A glance back told me the street was filling with teenage-looking Daelighters, all of them ditching their cars in front of their mansions. There was not one person on this street who looked older then late teens, early twenties.

“Do you die?” I whispered to Star.

She looked astonished for a moment, and I realized that my blurted question might have sounded vaguely threatening. She recovered smoothly. “Yes, of course we do. We’re very long-lived but not immortal. We really do just age differently to humans.”

I sensed that was the best answer I was getting for a while, so I shelved any further questions and focused on the simple – and hideous – task of running to keep up with all the long legs around me. In the bright light of day, streets usually showed their grimier side, trash, graffiti, potholes. Not Daelight. It was pristine, not a leaf out of place in the hedges. Not a dead flower in the gardens. The asphalt was untouched. The lines were bright white.

There had been a reason my spidey senses went off the first moment we drove up to the gates. It was actually the only time I had ever given true thought to Sara and Michael’s crazy theories. A sense of something unnatural was laced into this street, making it impossible for me to continue to insist my guardians’ theories were pure insanity.

Damn, I really owed them an apology.