Page 13 of 13 Nights

"I've read a muster roll that lists a Johann Brandt as a debtor substitute in a regiment that fought at a battle where you claim you were killed. That's not the same as reading your entry. Johann Brandt's entry says nothing about a von Brandt, or about nobility."

"Johann Brandt's entry wouldn't. That was the point."

"You're saying someone deliberately replaced your identity in the regimental records."

"I'm saying someone drugged me, shipped me across an ocean under a name that wasn't mine, and made sure every document attached to my existence said I was someone disposable."

He takes the first step onto the porch. "They put another man's name over mine and expected history to finish the work. It didn't. Your mother was the first person to recognize that Johann Brandt's records had been manufactured."

"And what happened to my mother when she found you?"

"She left."

"Before or after she drew your face and locked it in a desk?"

He's close enough now that I can see the wear at his coat seams and the tarnish on the buttons. His mouth is harder than the sketch made it look, almost severe.

Cold rolls from him and raises the hair along my bare arms. I should step back. Instead, I become acutely aware of how little space remains between us and how deliberately he has taken it.

"She left because she was wise," he says. "You're still here because you're stubborn. Those are different qualities."

"I'm here because I'm good at my job. My job is finding the truth about people who've been misrepresented. If your story is real, you're the most misrepresented person in American folklore."

"And if my story isn't real?"

"Then you're a very committed performer with an excellent tailor, and I'll figure that out too."

His jaw loosens by a fraction, the closest thing to amusement I've seen on his face. "You don't believe me."

"The historical record checks out. The video on my phone shows something I can't explain. My mother found this irregularity decades ago and cared about it enough to correspond with European archives. That's evidence. I'm not ready to call it proof."

"What would constitute proof?"

"Information you couldn't have gotten from the same sources I'm using. Something that only exists in unpublished records, or in the memory of someone who was there."

He watches me, and the deliberation is visible in the set of his jaw, the measured stillness before he speaks.

"The officer who confiscated my signet ring at Rinteln was Leutnant Georg Haas," he says. "Find the confiscation ledger for the regiment's intake. Under Johann Brandt's name, Haas recorded a gold signet bearing the Brandt family crest among the possessions taken during processing. He believed the ring was stolen. He copied the crest and inscription into the margin so ownership could be investigated."

"A debtor conscript carrying a noble family's signet."

"Precisely."

"Anyone could claim the entry describes a stolen ring."

"Then examine the description. The crest is quartered with a black stag, and the Latin inscription inside the band reads Fortes in fidelitate. An engraving error. The correct form is Fortis. My father considered correcting inherited property an admission that a Brandt had made a mistake." His mouth hardens. Whatever the memory contains, he has no intention of sharing it. "Find that error in the ledger, and you will have something no actor with good research could reproduce."

I write it down. Every detail. My hand is steady. "And if the ledger survived?"

"Haas signed the entry with his left hand. His right was splinted in linen and birch bark, and he had a scar across his left knuckles. You may not find those details in the records. I remember them because he used that scarred hand to take the last proof of my identity."

"I can verify the ledger entry. The ring, the crest, the inscription."

"I know."

"It'll take time. Archival requests. Possibly a direct contact at Marburg."

"I have until October thirty-first. After that, verification becomes a less pressing concern."