The Nat Makes 7 (Mags & Nats Book 1) Read online

  Contents

  Author’s Newsletter

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  CHAPTER 45

  CHAPTER 46

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Continue the Mags & Nats Series

  Discover other books by Stephanie Fazio

  THE NAT MAKES 7

  Copyright 2020 Stephanie Fazio

  Published 2020 by Stephanie Fazio

  This book is available in print at most online retailers.

  Cover design: Keith Tarrier

  The Nat Makes 7 is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual events, places, incidents, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved.

  Edition License Notes

  Thank you for downloading this ebook. This book remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be redistributed to others for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy from their favorite authorized retailer. Thank you for your support.

  Visit https://stephaniefazio.com/

  ISBN 978-1-951572-11-2 (print)

  ISBN 978-1-951572-13-6 (e-book)

  Epub Edition copyright April 2020 eISBN 9781951572136

  First edition

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  To Andrew. Thank you for being you.

  CHAPTER 1

  It was a typical Boston spring morning, and my breath fogged the air. By this afternoon, the banks of the river would be sun-drenched and filled with students from Harvard and the BSMU.

  My oar cut through the smooth water of the Charles River as I set the pace for the rest of the team. I could tell we were ahead even without our coxswain’s shouts of encouragement. The fatigue I fought more often than not had been replaced by the zing of adrenaline.

  Push, push, push.

  Coach’s voice rang in my head in time with each stroke.

  The race itself was low stakes. It was against a local Boston team to practice before the BSMU’s second-ever crew race against Harvard.

  The Boston School of Magical Unity, known as the BSMU, hadn’t been allowed into the Intercollegiate Rowing Association because of the unique composition of our team. Four of our rowers, including me, were Natural—people without magical abilities. The other four and our coxswain were Magics.

  When I joined the team as a first-year, the BSMU was competing in the all-Magic rowing league. The league was good enough, but all the other Ivies were in the Intercollegiate Rowing Association. When I became captain in my second year, I made a point of meeting with Harvard’s captain. After a few Sam Adams, he agreed to an exhibition race against us.

  That was last year, when we made national headlines after beating Harvard. This year, after about a thousand emails and several in-person meetings, Coach and I managed to secure the BSMU a spot in the Intercollegiate Rowing Association. We’d gone up against the best teams and were undefeated.

  My shoulders, which had been aching before the race began, were throbbing now. I focused on my form, gritting my teeth against the pain that was sending sharp jabs all down my spine. The pain was familiar, but I never quite got used to it. The rheumatologist I saw once a year always frowned and told me I needed to take it easy. Each time, I smiled, refused the offer of steroid injections, and went back to pushing myself to the edge.

  My dad had taught me that hard work and determination were the true ingredients of success, rather than innate talent. This mantra had become my obsession, although I never let anyone see how hard I worked. Thus, everyone at the BSMU believed I set the curve on every test without cracking open a textbook, made class president without trying, and became team captain without hitting the gym.

  If only.

  The truth was that I was average. Average brains, average brawn…better-than-average looks, so I’d been told. It was my intensity, my desperation to be the best, that made me what I was.

  We crossed the finish line far ahead of the other team to muted cheers from the small crowd. BSMU students had spirit, but less so when it was an early morning race, and even less so when it was an early morning race during finals week.

  I congratulated my teammates even as I tried to ignore the burning in my back and shoulders. When I got out of the boat, I realized the pain was in my knees, too. My body wanted nothing more than to crumple to the ground. I didn’t let it.

  The other captain was waiting for me. I went over and shook his hand, congratulating him on a good race. He said something, but I was distracted by the rest of his team.

  They had lined up along the dock with their arms crossed, and they were refusing to shake hands. One of them spit in the general direction of our boat. Then, they started chanting.

  “Dirty Nats, cheating Mags…dirty Nats, cheating Mags!”

  I felt my face heat.

  The other captain swore. “Look man, I’m sorry—”

  The chanting dissolved, but that was only because my friends had charged them.

  If I didn’t stop this….

  I broke into a run.

  Unnatural waves began launching up from the otherwise-calm river. Even though both teams were standing on the dock, the water only soaked our opponents. One of them screamed when a long rope of algae slapped across his face. The waves weren’t coming fast or hard enough to do any real damage, but the other guys were acting like the water was acid or something.

  If I wouldn’t have to answer to Coach about all this later, I’d be guffawing along with the rest of my teammates.

  “Knock it off,” I ordered my coxswain, a Level 4 Water Manipulator.

  “If they’re going to accuse us of using magic, we may as well use some magic,” he retorted. Raising his arms, he brought the waves together until a waterspout began to form. The swirling water grew higher.

  My coxswain moved his hands until the waterspout was cutting through river. It was coming straight for the other team’s boat.

  “Seriously,” I warned, trying to look serious.

  One of our power house rowers—who was huge and had a temper to match—body-slammed an opponent in the river.

  I grabbed him and yanked him back while the other captain hauled his teammate out of the water.

  “He started it!” my friend shouted as I wrestled him back.

  “Dirty Nats, cheating Mags!” the chant started up again.

  It pissed me o
ff, but I pushed down my anger. We were the only mixed Natural and Magic college crew team in the country. We didn’t have the luxury of sinking to the level of these idiots.

  “Graysen Galder, what the hell is going on down here?” Coach called out to me through his megaphone.

  …a little busy at the moment, Coach.

  Our team’s Level 5 Teleporter winked out of existence and re-appeared right in front of one of the other guys.

  “Kleinman, relax.”

  The two were shouting and about to come to blows by the time I got to them. I grabbed my friend’s arm before he punched the other guy.

  “Mag lover!” the moron I just saved from getting punched in the face called out to me. Anger licked at the edges of my consciousness, but I tamped it down.

  With our luck, some reporter would be here recording all of this, and our would-be rumble would go viral.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the other three Naturals on my team facing off against members of the opposing team. This needed to stop before people got hurt.

  “Get your goddamn team under control,” I yelled at the other captain.

  “You in love with all Mags?” a guy with shaggy hair and yellow teeth asked me and the other three Naturals.

  “Shut your mouth, Marcus,” his captain growled.

  Marcus ignored his captain.

  “You boys have Mag girlfriends, too? Probably the only action you can get, even if it makes you baby killers.”

  Baby killers. Breakers of the third high law…Magics and Naturals who had romantic relationships. There was no worse crime a person could commit than being half of a Magic-Natural couple. There was no greater offense than being accused of being a baby killer.

  My mind went white. A torrent of rage turned my blood cold, then hot. My whole body shook.

  I was the first one to reach the guy.

  He was still chuckling when I slammed my fist into his face. His garbled roar was cut off when I hit him again. And again.

  “Galder!” someone called behind me.

  I ignored the voice. I blocked out all of the shouting and people around us, until they were nothing more than a blur of color and sound.

  I absorbed a wild punch without even feeling it as I kept up my barrage. I didn’t feel the ache in my shoulders or knees anymore. I didn’t feel anything except for the rage that was too old and raw for me to control. I smelled the copper tang of blood in the air, felt my knuckles split. I saw the guy fall to the ground.

  I would have followed him if an iron grip wasn’t hauling me back.

  “Galder, what the hell’s gotten into you?”

  I recognized Coach’s voice through the haze of my fury.

  When I didn’t answer, he shoved me. Hard. I stumbled back, and Adam, my dorm suitemate, grabbed me before I lost my balance. I was breathing hard, less from the fight than from those two words circling around and around in my head.

  Baby killer.

  ✽✽✽

  “Wow, Galder. I’ve never seen you lose your shit like that before. Well done.” Adam clapped me on the back.

  “Yeah, I probably shouldn’t have done that,” I said, giving him what my teammates affectionately referred to as my golden boy smile.

  Adam punched me in the arm. “Thanks for absorbing Coach’s ire for us. We owe you one.”

  “Any time,” I muttered, waving him off as he and the rest of my teammates headed for lunch.

  I sat through Coach’s lecture and made all the necessary apologies. I really was sorry. I knew we were the ones who were supposed to be setting an example. Getting into a fist fight—even over bigotry as heinous as the words those guys had shouted at us—reflected poorly on the BSMU.

  If my dad knew, he would sigh and shake his head, and his shoulders would droop a little more.

  Besides, I wasn’t the type of person who lost his temper. I certainly didn’t need anyone wondering why that particular insult had gotten so deep under my skin.

  After Coach was gone and I was alone in the boathouse, I methodically went through each piece of equipment in our private gym. I jogged three more miles on the treadmill and flipped through the handful of index cards I’d been carrying with me all day.

  My teammates thought my athletic prowess came easily to me, just like my classmates thought my intelligence was as natural to me as abilities were to the Magics. Nothing could be further from the truth. Most nights, I fell asleep at my desk with my face pillowed on an open textbook. But the side of me everyone saw, the only side I let them see, was the easy-going top athlete and valedictorian-to-be.

  So, alone in our small gym, I pushed myself until my limbs were quivering and I saw dark spots.

  The joint pain was getting worse. So was the low-grade fever I’d had since this morning. The rheumatologist my dad brought me to about a decade ago diagnosed me with systemic lupus erythematosus, usually just called lupus. It wasn’t fatal, at least not the kind I had, but it was the reason why my limbs swelled and I got periodic fevers. I was hospitalized for the worst of the flare-ups a couple of times a year.

  Lupus had no cure, and the pain and exhaustion made it harder for me to do normal college things like pull all-nighters and be an athlete.

  No one at the BSMU knew about my diagnosis. During the days I was hospitalized, I told my friends I was out of town visiting relatives. My disease wasn’t something anyone needed to know about, and like so much else in my life, it was easier to keep the truth to myself.

  By the time I left the boathouse, it was late afternoon. I stopped by the dining hall and grabbed a cellophane-wrapped sandwich. I politely declined an invitation to join a few of the girls from my Magical Law class who were hunkered down with bowls of ice cream and stacks of neon-colored sticky notes. I cut across campus and headed back to my dorm.

  I downed my sandwich while I flipped through the five-hundred-or-so index cards I’d made in preparation of this exam. Our last final exam, the law final, was tomorrow. My major was Magic Relations and Cooperation with a concentration in Magical Law. If I didn’t get a hundred on the exam, it would just be embarrassing.

  I fell asleep at my desk several hours later, still fully clothed and with terms like magical manipulation in cases of perjury swimming through my head.

  CHAPTER 2

  Iwoke the next morning feeling better than I had the day before. My fever was gone, and a scalding hot shower had taken care of the worst of my joint pain. This exam was my last before graduation.

  It was going to be a good day.

  I walked into the lecture hall and was assaulted by the smell of stale coffee, greasy breakfast sandwiches, and student bodies that had clearly spent the morning studying rather than showering. Most of the students already in the room were staggering around like zombies…clutching their silver BSMU coffee mugs and rolling up the sleeves of too-big sweatshirts I imagined they had slept in. There was even one girl with bunny slippers and flannel pajama bottoms with unicorns all over them. I respected the bold choice.

  Most of my teammates were in this class, and I saw them madly flipping through their textbooks as they tried to cram a few last facts into their brains before the final.

  “Aren’t you looking bright-eyed and bushy-tailed,” Adam said, scowling at me.

  I winked at him.

  I liked that everyone thought I was smart enough to knock the hardest exam in the school out of the park without opening a book. Everyone who got into the BSMU was smart and hard-working. It felt like a vulnerability to be on the lower end of the IQ spectrum, at least as far as this crowd went.

  There were students in this class who could do well after only studying for a few days, but I’d been busting my ass all semester for this test. I’d skipped crew parties, mixers with the girls’ team, and weekend trips to New York so I could study.

  My friends assumed I was bailing to hang out with various mystery girls. I let their imaginations run wild and never bothered to correct them.

  “Bet you didn
’t even study last night, did you, Galder?” another one of my teammates asked before taking a long slurp from his iced coffee.

  “It’s Magical Law.” I shrugged. “No sweat.”

  Unlike my classes, working a crowd had always been a skill that came easily to me.

  “Yeah, maybe if we had a job all lined up in the Alliance’s Magical Law branch, we’d be strutting, too.”

  “I never strut,” I said, trying to look offended.

  I might have been strutting a little. But who could blame me? It was less than a week until graduation, and this was my last exam. The team had a post-graduation trip to Hilton Head planned, and then I’d be starting my new job as a Magical Law Specialist in the Alliance. It was the best job offer anyone at the BSMU had ever gotten straight out, and it’d been a dream of mine since high school.

  “Gonna get a hundred, Graysen?” one of the girls in my dorm asked.

  “You bet.”

  She blushed when I grinned at her.

  “He better,” a different female voice announced. “If he wants to close that embarrassing gap of .01 between our GPAs.”

  Penelope, a Level 9 Clairvoyant and the highest rated Magic at the school, stood in the doorway. A group of her friends clustered around her as she came into the room.

  Penelope’s skin was very pale, but not in a sickly kind of way. I could see why many of the school’s Magics said she looked like an angel. Her white-blonde hair, round face, and tiny frame gave her an air of innocence, which only served to confirm the kind soul that lay beneath. She had wire-rimmed glasses and a severe pony tail that made her look the part of one of the BSMU’s top students.

  She tilted her head back to give me a challenging stare. Penelope and I had been competing for the valedictorian spot for the Class of 2070 since I started at the school three years ago. Our rivalry was a fierce but friendly one. We’d traded the Number 1 spot back and forth so many times the Dean officially declared us co-valedictorians.

  We’d loudly condemned the decision, but we were both not-so-secretly pleased about it. It was an honor we both deserved.