Mark had been pacing in circles around his room for hours.
He was incapable of doing anything else.
On the other side of the wall, Emilia, Luna, Rose, and Cali had been in labor since noon.
All four had drunk Emilia's potion at the same time, just as they'd agreed, and ever since, the palace had turned into an anthill.
Midwives coming and going, buckets of hot water, piles of towels, and voices arriving muffled from the adjoining room.
He had tried to stay inside, of course.
The problem was that, after asking for the tenth time whether everything was going well, the palace's most veteran midwife, an elderly elf, took him by the arm and practically dragged him out.
"Fathers only get in the way. We'll call you when it's necessary," the old woman said with absolute calm before shutting the door in his face.
So Mark ended up doing the only thing he could do.
Wait.
Mark kept repeating to himself that everything was under control.
