Free Midwinter Magic by Katie Spark Page A

right? I mean here-here, not existentially. Bolivia. This village. That clipboard itinerary wasn’t a coincidence. You were following me.”
    “Y-yes. I go where you go. But you’re not supposed to see me.”
    “I’m not worried about that right now. I’m worried about these people, and their incredibly hard lives. Why aren’t their guardian angels doing anything? They can’t all be off fluffing clouds and playing harps. Shouldn’t they be attending to the bridge and the roofs and the penicillin?”
    “Hangottinny,” Sarah mumbled without meeting his eyes.
    The churning in his stomach twisted all the way into his throat. “I’m sorry, what?”
    She kept her eyes averted. “I said, they haven’t got any.”
    “Haven’t got any what?”
    “Guardian angels.”
    “None of them?”
    She shook her head.
    “Zero angels,” Jack repeated. “Zero guardian angels in the whole godforsaken village.”
    “In. . . Bolivia,” she corrected quietly. “There’s a few in Brazil and at least one in Argentina, but—”
    “Are you shitting me?” he spluttered.
    She was not. The misery on her face spoke for itself.
    He couldn’t believe it. “No bridge, no roofs, nobody looking out. But a corporate shark with nothing but time and money on his bloodstained hands, he’s the one who gets a guardian angel?”
    “I know it doesn’t seem fair. I’m not part of the planning committee, so I never saw the decision tree. But my supervisors found you worthy, and so do I.” She bit her lip again. “And I’ve been watching over you since birth. Long before you became a shark. Or a billionaire.”
    “No decision tree in the world should—” He sucked in a horrified breath. “Wait. Birth? Like, every minute of every day? Or just, like, sometimes?”
    “Every minute of every day. Except during end-of-month reviews. Then I’m gone for a few hours.”
    Jack’s neck heated. She’d seen him vomit up a pint of Jim Beam on his eighteenth birthday. She’d seen him spend three days in the bathroom after accidentally drinking the water in Morocco. She’d seen more than his deleted Internet history—she’d seen exactly how he reacted to that totally wrong, totally sexy, alien spaceship porn his college roommate had sent him.
    There could not be a hole big enough to drown in right about now.
    “But—the villagers,” he said desperately. “Why don’t they have angels watching over them?”
    “There’s a shortage,” Sarah admitted.
    “A shortage. Of angels. Are you guys in danger of extinction or something? Is it our fault? Do we need to stage a ‘clap your hands if you believe in angels’ sort of thing?”
    “No, we’re basically immortal. It’s just that there’s a lot more of you than there are of us. And since it’s basically confining yourself to an invisible solitary confinement for the rest of eternity, most people choose a different career path. Like management. Or coaching an interdimensional soccer team.”
    “Look,” he said with as much patience as he could muster. “There’s a shortage, and a need. You have the power to help these people. So, help them. What’s the worst that could happen?”
    “I’d be sacked,” she answered immediately. “And then the world would have one less guardian angel.”
    He thought about that. “What if I gave you permission? Dissolved whatever contract there is between you and me, so that you could help someone else before you get sacked?”
    “Even if you could fire me as your guardian angel—which you can’t—what about all the people who come after you? You may not be immortal, but I am. And the eternity of people who should’ve had a guardian angel but ended up dying young because some billionaire with a hero complex decided he’d rather get his angel fired than let her continue watching over people. . . what about them? Are you willing to dissolve their contracts, too?”
    His hands clenched into fists. “That’s not a fair question.”
    Her smile