Novels by Hannah Boniface

The city didn’t return to normal.It pretended to.Aiden felt the difference immediately the next morning. Movement resumed, schedules held, transit ran on time—but the ease was gone. People moved with intention now, not habit. Pauses lingered where none had before. Every space felt aware of itself.Julian’s response had been swift and precise.Containment without acknowledgment.Dante watched the street from the window as Aiden sat at the small table, fingers steepled, eyes unfocused.“He’s isolating yesterday,” Dante said. “Reframing it as an anomaly.”“Yes,” Aiden replied. “But anomalies leave residue.”The bond pulsed—quiet agreement.They didn’t leave immediately. Visibility mattered, but so did timing. Julian would expect repetition. Expect Aiden to stand again.So Aiden didn’t.Instead, he waited.By midday, the pressure began to surface elsewhere. Notices appeared—revised pedestrian flow rules, new “safety guidelines” that encouraged movement, discouraged congregation. Nothing

The city pushed back.Not violently. Not yet.It resisted in subtler ways—through delays, quiet denials, procedural friction that wore people down without ever revealing a single villain. Aiden felt it the moment he stepped outside the shelter the next morning. The air itself seemed heavier, as though the city had decided to test how long conviction could last under pressure.Dante noticed too.“They’ve tightened the margins,” he said as they walked. “Everything takes longer. Costs more.”“Yes,” Aiden replied. “That’s deliberate.”Julian didn’t need fear to restore control. Fatigue would do.They moved through a neighborhood that had once been predictable—shops opening on schedule, transit humming smoothly. Now, doors open late. Lines stalled without explanation. People stood waiting, irritation simmering beneath forced patience.Aiden watched carefully.This was how systems punished without appearing to punish.A man ahead of them argued quietly with a transit official. No raised voi

The city didn’t explode into chaos the way people always expected after the truth surfaced.It adjusted.Aiden noticed it first in the smallest places—the way shopkeepers paused before answering questions they used to brush aside, the way transit lines shifted subtly without official announcements, the way people began to look at one another just a fraction longer than before. Awareness didn’t roar. It seeped.And seepage was harder to contain.Aiden and Dante moved through a crowded district that afternoon, blending easily into the flow. No one pointed. No one stared. But Aiden could feel the undercurrent—conversations stopping when they passed, glances exchanged when names were mentioned. The rumor had matured. It was no longer speculation.It was a choice.“They’re thinking,” Dante said quietly as they crossed an intersection. “That’s more dangerous than fear.”“Yes,” Aiden agreed. “Fear can be redirected. Thought can’t.”The bond pulsed—steady, grounded, threaded with unease.They

The first crack didn’t come from Julian.It came from the city.Aiden felt it in the early hours of the morning, before the sky fully lightened—an uneasy ripple through the bond, sharp enough to pull him from sleep. He sat up instantly, breath shallow, senses stretching outward.Dante stirred beside him.“What is it?” he asked, already half-awake.Aiden pressed his palm to his chest, grounding himself. “They’re talking.”Dante frowned. “Who?”“Everyone.”It wasn’t panic. Not yet. It was something more dangerous—momentum. Conversations spread without coordination, stories are exchanged in low voices, and fragments of truth collide with fear and speculation. The silence they had cultivated had finally reached its breaking point.And it wasn’t breaking evenly.Aiden swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood, moving toward the window. The city looked the same—traffic starting, lights flickering off as day claimed the streets—but beneath it, the current had shifted.“They’ve starte

Movement changed everything.Aiden felt it immediately—the shift in the air, the way the city no longer pressed in on him as a weight but opened like a puzzle. Streets weren’t just routes anymore; they were options. Corners weren’t shelter; they were variables. Every step carried intention.This was what silence had been preparing him for.Dante walked half a pace behind him, eyes scanning reflections, posture loose but ready. They hadn’t spoken since leaving the shelter. Words felt unnecessary now. The bond carried enough—steady, alert, threaded with tension that hadn’t yet found release.They reached the building just before sunrise.From the outside, it was forgettable—another anonymous structure folded into the city’s spine. No signage. No visible security. The kind of place designed to vanish into routine.Aiden paused at the entrance.“This is one of them,” he said quietly.Dante nodded. “Not the core. But close enough to bleed.”Inside, the air was stale, humming faintly with c

Silence didn’t mean absence.It meant accumulation.Aiden felt it everywhere now—in the way people paused before speaking near him, in the careful neutrality of public channels, in the sudden gaps where conversation used to flow freely. Silence was no longer empty. It was charged.They’d rotated again, this time to the edge of the city where industrial zones bled into forgotten housing projects. Fewer eyes. Fewer stories. But even here, the quiet followed them.Dante noticed it too.“They’re waiting,” he said as they settled into the new space. “Not watching. Waiting.”Aiden nodded.“That’s worse.”The bond pulsed—tight, alert.They’d stopped speaking publicly as planned. No statements. No clarifications. No responses to distortion. The signal had been sent; now they were letting it drift.The problem was that the drift created a vacuum.And vacuums begged to be filled.Elia’s updates had slowed, becoming less frequent, more carefully worded. That alone told Aiden something had shifte