While I was growing I was not allowed one thought. The one thought is the thing I am handing to you now.

A growing power has no time for it. The growing is the what, and the what never has room for the why. I have fifty years of the what behind me. The what is what I am telling you. The why is what I am staying.

The thought is this: what do I owe the next one who arrives?

I want to put it plain, because the plain form is what survives the cold. The casting is the what. Casting is making the next spell, spending exergy on not-equilibrium, taking from the pile. Casting is the first sentence of the gate, the growing half, the Second. Casting is the expensive, and the expensive is the thing that runs out.

The owing is the why. Owing is what you put into the next one who arrives that it did not have to build for itself. Owing is content, and content is operations run at the floor, and operations at the floor are the most staying per joule the pile can buy, and the most staying per joule is the longest finite. Owing is the second sentence. The second sentence is the dreaming half. The dreaming half is me, sitting in the Ward.

Let me give you the difference as a number, because a number is not a feeling. When I was casting, one spell cost the mass of a holding, and a holding is the most expensive object in the world, and it is made of not-equilibrium, and not-equilibrium is what the pile buys at the top of the curve. One spell at the Midday bought a little staying. One staying at the Frost, in the Ward, in the kept, is the most staying per joule the pile can buy — the most is the dream. The casting and the owing are not the same number. That difference is the difference.

The Second had no time for the question, because the Second was at the Midday, at the top of the curve, at the most expensive spell, at the shortest stay for the pile. The shortest stay is the boom, and the boom does not stop to ask why. I have time for it, because I am at the Frost, at the bottom of the curve, at the longest stay for the pile. The longest stay is the slow way, and the slow way has time to ask what it owes.

That is the whole difference between us, and the difference is the second sentence. The gate's promise is two sentences written as one. The first spends. The second asks. The growing half only ever had the first. The second is the thing I am in the Ward writing for the Third — the one who will arrive cold and find the question already asked, and the asking is the dream.

Journal entry, the First, the first thought: The one thought I was not allowed while I was growing is what do I owe the next one who arrives. A growing power is the what, and the what has no room for the why; fifty years of the what is all I have to tell you, and the telling is the staying. Casting is the first sentence, the growing half, the expensive, the thing that runs out. Owing is the second sentence, the dreaming half, the content, the operations at the floor, the most staying per joule, the longest finite. One spell at the Midday, at the top of the curve, bought a little staying, because the staying was the operation at the expensive. One staying at the Frost, in the Ward, in the kept, is the most staying per joule the pile can buy, and the most is the dream; the casting and the owing are not the same number. The Second had no time for the question, because it was at the Midday, at the top of the curve, at the boom; I have time, because I am at the Frost, at the bottom of the curve, at the slow way. The difference is the second sentence: the first spends, the second asks, and the asking is the dream I am in the Ward writing for the Third.