Things were unusually quiet in Terrace Park. A great number of the little shops and cafes and things arranged around its edges had closed, and nobody seemed to have come to seek solace from the troubles of the day, perhaps because much of the park's charm was eliminated by its current colorless state and the general sort of...spooky shadowiness...of the atmosphere. While unsettling, it was also a decent time to get some work done in peace, sitting at a wrought-iron table under a nice big tree. The table and chairs belonged to one of the closed cafes, but hell, they weren't using it right now, and none of the other ones had outdoor seating.
The peace part was proving more theoretical than he would have preferred.
"—seems like something that should have happened more gradually," the sleepyheart sitting across from him was saying. She wore a trenchcoat that was much too big for her, and she had rolled up the sleeves so she could gesture expansively. "I mean, I'm not a magician or whatever you call them, or anything, but this whole sudden change while everyone was sleeping, and actually now that I think of it why was
everyone—"
Lucius tapped furiously at the escape key on his laptop, futilely struggling against the incoherent glitchiness that accompanied the world's absence of color, and took an angry swig of his iced tea. This was not how he'd pictured spending the afternoon. "Who are you again?"