I could avoid the Simurgh’s attacks by jumping forward in time by a few milliseconds and moving permanently and locking in that future, but I couldn’t bring Norn with me into that future. The moment I tried to move her, my spell would be broken and I’d be a sitting duck in front of the powerful rainbow colored bird.

Using magic hands to bring her away was tough enough, since there was a delay in her movement because of the distances between us, but I also had to account for the tiny jump in time that I would be making. If in that tiny moment, the Simurgh managed to reach Norn, I’d be screwed. The secret Ikon that the Simurgh had been keeping from me wouldn’t be of any use to me if the Simurgh burnt her to a crisp to protect the Book of the Past from me.

I jumped into the future once more to avoid a dive-bombing Simurgh. I’d moved Norn away with a spell, but the Simurgh would turn and try to grab her at any moment. In fact, I’d have to make sure my jump in time was even shorter than usual, just in case the Simurgh had something up its proverbial sleeve.

Safely jumping through the future, I began working on my ability to jump through time once again. I managed to get it down to as low as I could, but I had a feeling it wouldn’t be enough. I’d have to come up with something else. Perhaps I could shave off some time by substituting the magic hands spell with something else.

I still hadn’t used my new magic system to its fullest potential, since I’d been hiding it from the Immortals. Even now, I didn’t think the Immortals knew that I had a whole new magic system, since the diamonds spell might just have been a new spell that they did not know about and they wouldn’t have been able to detect much else.

I began looking inward at my own body. Taking deep breaths, stretching my joints, and doing some light exercise made my blood start pumping and my heart start beating more regularly. I wasn’t trying to warm up or anything, the fight had already warmed me up enough. Instead, I was focusing on the way my body responded to exercise and combining that with knowledge from my previous world.

Knowledge about bones and blood and vital organs of all sorts. The way muscles contracted and expanded, the way they tore and repaired themselves, and the way bodybuilders and athletes sharpened their body to fulfill their goals. What did it mean to have a healthy body? What did it mean to be fit for combat or sports or some other physical task? And what did it mean for somebody to be conscious of their body and its strengths?

Did Virgil in the Aeneid not say that the mind moves the mass? And there is at least some truth, as borne by the placebo effect, that one’s expectations, things contained purely in the mind, can influence one’s physical reality. If I could unite this sort of thinking with my understanding of human biology, perhaps I could invent another spell that would be useful in this situation.

It took a lot of trial and error. I was meditating for what felt like years. Running, stretching, and exercising for what felt like even longer. All the while, I was jumping into the future, never allowing myself to stay in one time for very long. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, I let out some steam from my mouth, took a deep breath back in, and let my muscles rest.

Doing all of this taught me two things about the sort of spells contained in ‘domains’ like the domain of the Present and the Future which I was using right now. First, using spells that worked with the domains used way less energy than the spells I used based on my magic systems. It was almost like having all knowledge of a concept or idea gave the Immortals a cheat code that reduced the cost of their spells. This explained how they had been able to use so many crazy spells without ever seeming tired. Second, I realized the Evil Eye and the Simurgh were probably using their time domains to run away from Madness whenever they were in trouble. Back when Noel and I accidentally led Madness into the Simurgh’s tree, the Simurgh must have jumped back to the past to escape from Madness. This did raise a question, though: where did Madness run? If he governed the Present, shouldn’t he have been present always?

Even though I had read the Book of the Present off of Noel’s transformed body, I still felt like I was missing something. I could jump into the future and return to the present, but I couldn’t quite manipulate the present or anything. I was definitely missing something and the thought made me uneasy.

But there was nothing I could do about it. I readied myself and jumped back to the present. As soon as I returned, I went back into the future and moved into place right next to Norn. The Simurgh, in its massive rainbow colored form, was just a few feet away from me. Even in my suspended state, I could feel the heat radiating from its body. I met the Simurgh’s gaze which, although frozen, felt like it could pierce right through me. I shivered.

I calmed myself down and prepared my new biological magic. I placed my hands near Norn’s body, primed my muscles, prepped my joints, and dug into the ground. As soon as I did so, I grabbed onto Norn’s body, pushed my hand-eye coordination to its limits, and swung her away from the Simurgh. I used air and earth magic to reduce the friction on my body and feet while balancing myself with gravity magic. With my new biological magic, I dashed away from the Simurgh at an incredibly pace, my entire body working like a well-oiled machine.

Muscles pushed and pulled at the perfect time. Joints rotated and limbs flexed in perfect harmony. My feet pushed against the ground at the perfect angle and the rest of my body carried me forward with the perfect momentum. Norn was tucked under my arm like a football but because she was actually held up by magic hands, I was able to use the rest of my body like an Olympic sprinter to quickly get out of range of the Simurgh’s attack.

As suspected, the Simurgh let out a massive breath of fire all around its body as it touched the ground. The heat was unimaginable. It managed to turn even the igneous rocks of this volcanic region back into magma under the Simurgh’s feet. The air crackled with energy and a shock-wave reached us all the way over where I had run.

Thankfully, I’d tossed Noel and Alek way off to the side long ago. The two would be bruised and scratched up, but wouldn’t be too badly banged up. It was definitely better than being incinerated in a flash of fire, that’s for sure.

The Simurgh didn’t even have the time to react before I got out of its reach with Norn. It was so caught up in its fiery little display, it didn’t even realize it had given me enough time to turn Norn back into a page and begin reading as fast as possible. Another thing I had worked on while jumping through the future, was my ability to read. I’d always been a fast reader, but this kind of reading was something special. It took me a while to realize that I could make it faster by forcing the words to materialize only in my mind, rather than needing to speak them out loud. That also meant I wouldn’t be making any noise while I was reading, so the Simurgh was caught completely by surprise when I appeared far away from its attack, with a shiny page in one hand and a look of intense concentration on my face.

It did, however, realize that something was wrong, and it came for me with a terrible flap of its wings. Thankfully, Madness jumped down to the ground at precisely that moment, flinging a groaning red Evil Eye to the side. The disembodied red eye rolled around like a marble, its pupil loose like in one of those toys with the googly eyes.

“My beloved!” cried Madness, with his hands held aloft as if welcoming the Simurgh to his embrace. “You must let me give up, already! Please! Come, Annihilate me!”

The Simurgh snarled, “Get out of my way, outsider! You have been a thorn in my side for too long! Besides, that ungrateful elf has the domain of Annihilation right now. Go ask him for it if you want it so badly!”

Madness laughed. “No, beloved, I know you too well. Poor Caspian over there never read the Book of Annihilation at all. In fact, if it wasn’t for me, he wouldn’t have been able to read the Book of the Future or the Present. We both know this.” Madness turned to me with a smile. “I am saying this only for the benefit of our pointy eared friend.”