The day we finally step through the ring is the day Skelderheim stops being theory and turns into stone under our boots. One second there’s the generator humming in the observatory basement. The next, it’s gone, and we’re standing on a cold quay in a city that smells like wet stone, old wood, and salt that’s been here longer than any of us. The sky is wrong, the light is wrong, and everyone on the dock is staring at my braid like they’ve seen it in a story they hoped would never come true.

In this first Skelderheim entry, I write down everything I can from those first hours: the frost circle fading off the portal ring, the way the crowd quietly rearranges itself around us, the mural of armored women whose hair looks uncomfortably like mine, the tavern where a coil of Finch’s rope buys us stew and a room, and the rules the innkeeper gives us about shutters and bells once the city closes itself for the night. I don’t know yet what any of it really means. I only know that if we make it back, I want this day to be more than a blur.