If you are reading this journal, please stop – right now.

It's mine, meant for my eyes alone. I'm constantly losing my things, and I don't care if you found it in a second-hand bookstore or a tea shop, but this is a private notebook.

My travels around India, documenting a hundred mythical creatures, are deeply personal. I hope to compile my findings and publish them someday. It's then that you can know more about the fierce Asunam that are beguiled by forest music and the Manticores that roam the deserts in the west, or the Thlen that terrorize the north-east and the Makaras that patrol the southern seas...but wait for it!

There's no reason for you to be reading someone else's diary. Mail me at [email protected], so that you can return it. Immediately.