Emmett and I wait eagerly as Cosette searches for the link.

“Bingo!” She props up her phone at an angle so we can all see, and we huddle around the screen as the video loads.

Adeline looks just like Cosette but a few years older and taller, with wavy dark hair flowing down to her waist and that same creamy, flawless complexion. She’s dressed in a beautiful long robe of Gumiho silver that shimmers and sparkles as if made of stardust. In the clip, Adeline walks onto the stage and then waves at someone off-camera. She closes her eyes and takes a big breath before beginning her performance.

“Our legends tell of a time when two suns and two moons adorned the sky. There were no days, no nights, no passage of time. They called this the Age of the Godrealm.”

Adeline’s voice is deep and velvety, and I’m immediately drawn in.

“One day, upon considering the luminous sky, the six goddesses asked the mother a question. ‘Mago Halmi, why are there two suns and two moons?’

“The mother of all creation responded, ‘They are each a pair—a dark sun for a light sun, a dark moon for a light moon. They represent a balanced set of scales, like the eum and yang, built in perfect equilibrium, as you are.’”

Adeline uses her glamour magic to turn the stage into the night sky, and then creates the illusion of the two suns and two moons floating majestically above her. The backdrop makes her look ethereal, and my eyes are glued to the sight. I’ve always known about this legend—it’s where the gifted mark originated, after all—but I’ve never heard the end of the story, and how we got the sky we have today.

The performance continues.

“But the goddesses did not understand, and so Mago Halmi thus explained, ‘There is light within us all, as there is darkness within us all. These two absolutes make us whole. This is the way of the universe.’”

I lean in even closer toward the small phone screen.

“This revelation, however, distressed the six goddesses. They could not accept that divine beings such as themselves could be flawed. They deemed the dark sun and dark moon—symbols of their inner darkness—an unsightly reminder of their weakness. So they hatched a plan. They commanded Mago Halmi’s guardian pet, the Haetae, to leap into the sky and devour the dark sun and dark moon.”

Adeline waves her hand, and suddenly the dark sun and moon floating above her explode, sending a shower of light falling down onto her shoulders.

“When the uni-horned lion beast bit into the dark sun and dark moon, shards ricocheted to all corners of the sky, peppering the wide expanse with twinkling pockets of light. Some smaller fragments fell to the Mortalrealm—our Earth—to be lost to the Godrealm forever.”