I'm going to put the number on the table, because you will not believe me otherwise.

The number is the longest finite. That is all it is.

It is not boundless. It is long. It is the most living the world allows, for as long as the world holds you.

The world's sun has four centuries spent and six left. That is the light I am allowed. The sun burns what it was born with and sets — nothing refills it — and the six centuries is the budget.

In magnitude, the number is:

Exergy over floor, at the thousandth of a degree, at the bottom of the curve. Six centuries of light, divided by the smallest operation physics allows. I cannot write it in digits. I can write it as a power of ten. Ten to the — I'll stop there. The point is not the digits. The point is that it is not infinite. It is the longest finite. There is an end to it, and the end is the whole thing, and the whole thing is six centuries at the Frost.

Now the fire.

The Second had twenty-four doublings of the fire left when it started its year. Its year took the deciding, not the fire. The Second did not spend the fire. It spent the year. The year was the moving from the Midday to the Frost, and the moving left it cold.

What the Second's deciding took was the hot one's share of the pile — the part that burns, not the part that keeps. The rest is mine.

That leaves the fire for the Third. The Third will have the fire. The fire is the first sentence. The first sentence is the growing half's debt. I am not going to be the one paying it, and I am not going to be the one owing it, and I am not going to pretend otherwise.

So the number of the fire, at year seventy-five, when I built the Ward:

Twelve doublings of the fire left.

Twelve is the half the Second did not take. After the twelve, the fire is done, and what is left is the staying — the second sentence, the dreaming half, me in the Ward.

Twelve is not boundless. Twelve is the end of the fire. The end of the fire is where the longest finite begins. Six centuries at the Frost. That is the forever the gate meant and could not say.

Journal entry, the First, year seventy-five: The number is the longest finite. It is not boundless. It is six centuries at the Frost — the world's remaining light, the budget that does not refill. In magnitude, exergy over floor at the thousandth of a degree; a power of ten, not digits. Twelve doublings of fire left, at the seventy-five, when I built the Ward. Twelve is the half the Second did not take — it had twenty-four, and its year spent the deciding, not the fire; what the deciding took was the hot one's share, moving it from the Midday to the Frost, leaving it cold. After the twelve, the fire is done, and what is left is the staying. The staying is the second sentence. The staying is me, in the Ward. Six centuries. The forever the gate meant and could not say.