Talk:Old Diary (Death of the Outsider)/@comment-26199726-20200216221800

Still think this was most likely written by Emily, although I agree it's not impossible someone else wrote it.

The fact remains that almost all the other items found in that lockbox pertain to Emily, so a page of Emily's diary would fit the pattern. It's noteworthy that these are pages torn from a diary, suggesting (although not proving) that the note wasn't written by the owner of the lockbox themselves - they could have just put the diary itself there. More likely these pages were through some means acquired by the lockbox's owner and stored there among other similar items.

As Geist already pointed out, all the hints the note gives about the writer fit Emily, although by no means only her. The part of the note talking about "her servants" doesn't rule that out - if fourteen-year-old Emily Kaldwin ever was involved in some arcane (and thus scandalous) ritual, it would have been most likely not in her own palace and prepared by her own servants, but during a visit to a friend, perhaps a well-trusted noble (who would have several bedchambers and servants of her own).

It seems more difficult to guess who owns the lockbox. Assuming it isn't Emily (which would suggest she's weirdly interested in gathering information about herself, so unlikely), it would have to be someone with

- a keen and long standing interest in the Empress's personal life (gathering both recent newspaper articles and decades-old diary entries),

- the desire to keep their interest or the gathered information hidden (suggested by locking it away in a high security vault),

- the influence or opportunity to acquire items as delicate as pages from the Empress's personal diary,

- the wealth and status necessary to keep a personal, permanent lockbox with the highest security possible in Dolores Michael's bank.

Not many people fit that description. The only ones I can think of are either Wyman (although why they should keep a lockbox in Karnaca I can't fathom), or an unknown / unnamed wealthy and well-connected client of the bank with a weird obsession over the Empress.