To the one whose hands have found this page,
I have hidden these words beneath black lace, not because they are dangerous, but because they are fragile. The world remembers kings, wars, and monuments. It forgets the quiet things: a whispered name, a vanished garden, a hand once held beneath candlelight.
The old traditions spoke of the vampire as a creature of hunger. They misunderstood. The true hunger is remembrance. To hold what time has stolen. To preserve what the world abandons.
The Crimson Archive: that which remembers. The Mirror: that which reveals. The Lace: that which binds all lost things together.
Should these pages survive me, let them not become a weapon. Let them remain what they always were: a letter to something that never answered.