Coin stared at Scylla in bewildered silence for some time. The witch, cool as ice, strode to a chair in a corner of the room and took a seat. “What... do you mean?” he eventually asked.

  “There is something beyond the coast of Arcadia. I thought it was my imagination at first, but then the sensation of a presence became too regular to ignore. A font of magical power... pinging our way.”

  Coin froze. “Can... every wizard in Arcadia feel it?”

  She shook her head. “Not all. Few are trained as I am in the ability to sense mystical energies. But those that are will be unable to wholly ignore what is out there.”

  Silence filled the room, and Coin found himself pacing stiffly from point to point. Eventually he looked up, meeting Scylla’s gaze. “What does that mean, exactly? What... what’s out there?”

  “I don’t know. Truly. In all my years, I’ve never been in a situation like this one.” A long and thin frown graced her normally placid face. “But... whatever is out there, it’s clearly extraordinarily powerful. A living wellspring of magic.”

  “But why is it trying to contact me? If that is what’s happening with this weird presence.”

  Scylla was silent for some time. Eventually, she turned and looked him dead in the eye. “Let us speak plainly,” she said, tilting her head slightly. “I know what you are, Coin. I had my assumptions when we first met, and they were confirmed by my little spy. You are, against all the known laws of nature, a monster who has evolved to a human level of intelligence.” It was at that moment that Coin noticed those faint trails of darkness that lined the rim of the room, blocking any sound of their conversation from being overheard.

  Coin stared at her. And, ultimately, he knew there was no sense in trying to argue, or concoct some manner of lie. “I am,” he said. “I don’t really like the way you phrased it, but... yes.”

  “There are those who would use much harsher phrasing, if they knew.”

  “Fair enough. But so what? What does my... nature have to do with all this?”

  “Because your very essence is unique. Alien. Most people would not notice, at a glance. And even those with magic would not sense it unless they knew what they were actively searching for. But having sensed it for myself, I know that strange energy also radiates from whatever lurks in Arcadia’s sea.”

  Coin stared at her as if she had grown a second head. “Strange energy?” he repeated.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  “You assumed, in the past, that you gained your intellect by eating a potion designed to boost intelligence. The problem, however, is that your evolution is not just one of intellect. A mimic, able to think like a human, would still be a mimic. In isolation, even with heightened intelligence, you would not intrinsically grasp things like language, and basic social norms.”

  Coin considered this, briefly pulling his brows together. When he thought back on his first days of sapience, they were something of a blur. But he had taken to humanity rather wall, cobbling together whatever he had learned from studying and preying on humans in the past.

  “You did not gain intelligence, Coin. You gained personhood. Whatever you consumed, it was the essence of personhood, the drive to think, and act, and behave as a person would. And that essence, combined with the human memories and knowledge dormant inside of you, quickly formed a gestalt being with a baseline of knowledge.”

  It took Coin a few moments to grasp what the witch was suggesting. He would have considered it crazy, if Scylla hadn’t spoken with such authority. “A potion can do all that?”

  “No lowly potion could do that, Coin. This was the work of something far stronger. A substance from beyond the veil of reality that can infuse life into that which does not live, the secret of its creation being a mystery largely lost to time. Animus.”

  That word, spoken aloud, sent a tremor racing through Coin’s whole boy. He stood rooted in place, his eyes wide with alarm. Why... did that word sound so familiar?

  It echoed through his mind, as if spoken to him down the length of a long tunnel. Images flashed in his mind, unbidden, of ancient walls and great stone spirals. Like a tomb carved deep into the innermost bowels of the earth.

  “I believe you consumed animus. How you even came into contact with a fabled substance like that is another matter. Whatever the case it radiates off of you. Just as traces of it echo from whatever is beyond our shores. You’re like... siblings, in an abstract sense.”

  “Another... mimic? Like me?”

  “Almost certainly. Though this one is far older and much vaster in size.”

  Coin swallowed. He knew, in theory, there was no telling how large a mimic could get. Given enough time and things to feed upon, they could become truly massive. How big was this... thing if it could be sensed all the way out at sea?

  “And... what does it want from me?”

  At that Scylla could only shrug. “Curiosity? Loneliness? It sensed you, and has been drawn to you ever since. Maybe it wants to mate with you.”

  “Be serious, would you?”

  “I am being serious.” A ghost of a smile flitted across her face, her mind alight with a few crude jokes that she hastily shelved for later. “Mimics do that, yes?”

  The hairs on the back of Coin’s neck tingled, and he felt a rush of heat surge toward his ears. “Yes,” he reluctantly admitted. It was not quite mating as humans did it. Mimics were largely genderless by default, and mating between them was like... two carriages crashing together, merging into a single viscerally unpleasant mass. When they parted, one of them (or occasionally both in VERY vigorous circumstances) would be carrying new life. “If this thing is massive, then it might just try to eat me.”

  She shrugged her slim shoulders. “Possibly. Regardless, I would advise investigating this lifeform before it gets too close to the coast. If people look out to sea and notice something massive drifting their way, it would cause mass panic. And panicking people are the most dangerous idiots of all.”

  She had a point, not that Coin was happy to admit it. “Suppose I’ll need to look into it then. Can’t imagine the thing will leave me alone otherwise... but I still don’t know what we’re even looking for.”

  A cryptic smile formed on Scylla’s face. She raised a hand, darkness swirling upon her palm, before it forged into a crystalline orb. “Would you like to see?” she asked. “I dispatched one of my little eyes across the sea. At the current rate of flight, we should be able to see our mysterious ‘visitor’ through his eyes by now.”

  Coin hesitated. He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t curious to meet another being like himself. Perhaps the only one in all existence.

  “Fine. Just so I know what we’re dealing with.”