Page 12 of 13 Nights

"You showed me your mother's research. That was hers, not yours."

"Then let me show you mine." I pick up the folder from the chair beside me. "The von Lossberg unit fought at White Plains on October 28, 1776. Among the personnel listed in the muster rolls is a debtor substitute named Johann Brandt. His paperwork doesn't match the standard substitution format. The origin field is vague where others are specific. The debtor contract reference doesn't correspond to any filing system in the Hessian administrative records. And the supporting documentation looks manufactured."

He goes still. Every part of him locks into place at once, controlled, deliberate, a man choosing what his face will show.

"My mother flagged the same anomaly years ago," I continue. "She wrote to archivists in Marburg asking about the embarkation records and a name discrepancy she couldn't resolve without access to primary files."

"What is your question?" His voice is quiet.

"Were you at White Plains under a false name?"

The silence holds. The false name strips the civility from his face.

For the first time, I understand that his stillness isn't calm. It's containment.

"Yes," he says.

"Johann Brandt."

He flinches. The movement is small, a contraction around his eyes, but it's the first involuntary response I've gotten from him. Whatever that name means, it costs him to hear it.

"That name was given to me," he says. "I did not choose it."

"Who gave it to you?"

"Someone I trusted."

"Why?"

"I'll tell you why, when you answer something for me." His voice drops into command, the expectation of obedience so absolute that complying occurs to me before defiance wins. "Why are you still here?"

My shoulders tighten. I hold his gaze. "I told you. I'm writing a novel and my mother left me this cottage."

"Those are facts, not reasons. A woman inherits a house she didn't know existed, finds her dead mother's secret research, and instead of selling the property and going back to her life, she moves in and starts poking around in things that shouldn't concern her. I ask again, why?"

"Because the threads are there."

"What threads? Your mother found something you think intrigued her. She must have found those same threads. Apparently they didn't hold much interest for her as she left them."

"No. My mother was afraid of something. That's why she left. I'd like to know what it was, and I think you know."

He studies me the way a man watches a puzzle that has just become more complicated than he bargained for, and the irritation behind his eyes says he's not accustomed to complications he can't dismiss.

"Your name," I say again. "We had a deal."

The corner of his mouth moves. I would not call it a smile. "Severin."

"Severin what?"

"Von Brandt."

“Severin von Brandt,” I say. “Ashley Caldwell… since apparently we’re exchanging verifiable information.”

His name lands in the quiet, and the porch light steadies as if a current had been wavering that I hadn't noticed until it stopped. A coincidence. A fluctuation in the wiring. An old house with old electrical work.

"Severin von Brandt," I repeat, testing the weight of it. "Von Brandt. A nobleman serving as a debtor substitute in a conscript regiment."

"Now you see the problem."