Darkness didn't settle over the street so much as drop on top of it like a sledgehammer.
One second there had still been a thin gray wash clinging to the buildings, enough to separate pavement from curb and broken glass from shadow. The next, it was gone.
The city flattened into black shapes and hard edges, the burned circle around them standing out only because the pavement there still seemed to be glowing in the darkness. The streetlights flickered to life, but there wasn't nearly enough to see more than three feet in front of them.
Ash drifted through the air in slow, weightless spirals, catching against Yuche's sleeve, Chenghai's pant leg, the front of Zhenlan's shirt. The smell of scorched flesh and melted rot sat thick in the back of the throat.
