She spent the whole hour passing the mouse to and from the Veil, timing each encounter with her wand in increasing increments of thirty seconds. On the second trip, she secured a bobby pin to the mouse’s ear, hoping it would be a sufficient stand-in for the blade she would later need. Every time the mouse came back, relief flooded through her—not only because she wouldn’t have to use another mouse and carve another tiny rune into her thigh, but because with each success, it meant another half a minute she’d have on the other side.