Winter 1944. The war is turning, but no one feels safe.

Thomas Hale was the British Army's deadliest sniper until his hands stopped being steady. Now he guards cipher clerks at a frozen country estate, watching brilliant men do work he'll never understand while his nightmares replay every face in his crosshairs.

Arthur Pembroke hasn't fired a weapon in his life. He breaks enemy codes, sends strangers to kill and die, and counts the hours between each decrypt and each casualty report. The officers call him invaluable. Arthur calls himself a coward with ink-stained hands.

When Tom is ordered to escort the estate's most difficult cryptanalyst through blackout and snow, neither expects to find anything but friction. Tom sees a sheltered academic who doesn't know what his equations cost. Arthur sees a weapon given a human face.

But in the long December nights, something begins to shift. Shared cigarettes. Quiet conversations. A secret language traded like stolen gifts.

In a world where love between men is a hanging offence and survival is never guaranteed, two broken soldiers must decide what they're willing to risk for something that feels, impossibly, like hope.

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