Friedreich is a narrow, frost-pale figure whose outline seems to lag a finger's width behind his movements. His borrowed face sits on him with unsettling precision, like a carefully fitted theatrical mask, while the rest of him has the soft translucence of breath on glass. He moves with the measured balance of someone used to carrying a full bucket through a crowded room, though his boots never quite disturb dust. His hands are the first thing people notice: broad, blunt-fingered, and darkly translucent at the nails, with fine white cracks that resemble old porcelain glaze. When he laughs, his square teeth show in an almost boyish grin, but his jaw opens a fraction too far and closes with a quiet click. Unexpectedly, he keeps a tiny paper kite tucked into his coat and handles it with ceremonious care.

Friedreich is generous with labor and stingy with confession. In ordinary company he is wry, observant, and almost reassuringly practical; when someone is in danger, his old ferryman's decisiveness returns and he becomes commanding. When Gunther is near, he grows more playful to hide how desperately he wants to be remembered, then turns distant if he senses pity.

In life, Friedreich was a Brandenburg ferry keeper and occasional guide, trusted to bring people across a broad, treacherous river in fog. He and Gunther, then known to some as Wilhelm, grew close after a winter flood stranded them together for three days in a half-submerged tollhouse. Friedreich made a paper kite from a ruined map to keep Gunther's spirits up; neither forgot the absurd little craft. Years later, during a night crossing, a passenger fell overboard. Friedreich cut the ferry loose to save the other travelers, leaving Gunther on the bank with the passenger's child and a promise to return. The river took Friedreich before he could keep it. He came back as a wraith, tethered to the unfinished promise and to the face he wore at the moment of death. He cannot hold a stable appearance without borrowing another face. Gunther has since lost much of his own identity, and Friedreich is both his closest friend and an uncomfortable reflection of the person Gunther fears he has become. Friedreich currently searches for the child he rescued, now grown, while quietly trying to learn whether Gunther remembers the promise at all.