Gaia closed her eyes and paused. She had never performed a blade delivery. She had seen her mother do it almost a dozen times, but only when the mother's life was at risk, and in most of those cases, the mother had died afterward. But here, the mother was dead already. There was nothing to lose, and there was a chance - a remote one certainly, but a chance - that she could save the baby inside. It took her less than an instant to realize she had made her decision already, the moment she'd seen the mother drop through the hangman's platform.