Yeah, sorry, I was totally not thinking straight when I thought of Milligan/Miss Perumal. If it's any excuse, I just went 24 hours without sleep (I was traveling), but I slept 14 hours last night so it's all good haha.

Anyway, I'm planning that something sinister is going to happen, so we'll just see!

Sticky

Sticky was still, unfortunately, going through his own romantic woes.

"You're lucky you and Sophie are so close," he said wistfully as they sat on the floor of Reynie's room. Reynie grinned. "Nothing good is going to happen with Cleo and I, I just know it!"

"Don't say that," Reynie said quickly. "You never know. Honestly, I thought nothing good would come of going to school and look where I am now! Sophie and I are practically… well, I don't know. Things aren't particularly 'official' between us." A thought hit him and he blanched. "Sticky – do you think she's waiting for me to ask her on a date?"

"I don't know," Sticky said gloomily. "Nothing I've read has even touched upon this topic – although with my last girlfriend, I was indeed the one to 'ask her out'."

"See? You've at least had a girlfriend already. I don't know what to do with Sophie. I like her, a lot, but do I just treat her like a friend?"

"Please stop complaining," said Constance, who had snuck through the door without them noticing her.

Sticky jumped. "Constance! Why in the world are you up here?"

She came and sat down next to them, stared at her legs, then shrugged. Although she'd grown up a good deal, she still couldn't figure out how to cross them. "I've just seen Milligan," she began, "and he had the look."

"Uh oh," said Reynie. Milligan's "look" was something that the Society had learned to identify in the past year or so. It was a determined, steadfast, rather formidable expression that crossed his face whenever he was coming – or had come to – a resolute decision. Usually it cropped up whenever he had a new secret mission.

"Did it last long?" asked Sticky in a quavering voice. You see, he lacked self confidence so much in comparison to Milligan that the mere thought of him going off and doing something probably reckless and dangerous frightened him to no end.

"I don't know," said Constance, beginning to root around in Reynie's bottom drawer for candy. "What's this?" she asked, holding it up.

"Lollipop," he said casually, then realized that she was not to go through their drawers, much less obtain sweets, and grabbed for it. She'd already popped it into her mouth, though, and smirked at him. He gave her a stern look, then sighed and asked, "Well, didn't you get a feeling for it?"

"What, you mean read his mind?"

The boys both nodded.

"I suppose I could've done that," she mused, sucking loudly on her lollipop and smearing red dye all over her mouth. "He was walking too fast, though, and I only saw sort of a... image. I don't know how to describe it." She made a noise of frustration, as she always did when she couldn't put words to the picture in her head.

"It's okay," Reynie said soothingly. "Did you glean anything from it?"

She gave him a dirty look. "I'm fine, and it was confusing."

Sticky's face lit up. "Is it a riddle?" he asked eagerly.

"No," snapped Constance. "Okay, Mr. Benedict hasn't taught me what or why this happens, but sometimes, when I don't even mean to read someone, I still see what they're thinking, just in quick images, like a slideshow. I think it happens depending on the intensity of their thoughts or feelings or whatever." She waved a hand, dismissing foolish things like thoughts and feelings. "So when I saw Milligan, I saw a picture of Kate climbing that tree and then a – a heart, or something? Something awful and pink… and then I saw the back of a boy's head, but I didn't know who it was. And then Madge diving down from the sky and Moochos Brazos swinging something or someone around."

"And then?" asked Sticky.

"Then Miss Perumal came up to ask why I wasn't in bed and I was busy."

"You don't need to say it in that hurtful tone," said Sticky defensively. "Why do you always do that to me? Reynie, why does Constance –"

"I don't know," said Reynie, distracted. "Did you say you saw Kate's face?"

Constance nodded, then held out the lollipop stick. "I'm done."

"For the hundredth time, I'm not going to throw away your trash," he said in exasperation. "Tell me what you saw again."

"I'm sure it was nothing," she insisted, reaching for his dresser drawer again, but he slammed it shut.

"You're not getting anything else out of me," he said.

"Where is Kate, anyway?" asked Sticky. "I feel like I haven't seen her in ages."

As if on cue, the floor creaked and as they ran to peek out, a blond ponytail disappeared around the corner. Reynie automatically started to walk after it, followed by Sticky. Constance weighed the options: she could ransack their room for more candy, or go with them to interrogate their strangely silent friend, and chose the former.

"Kate!" Reynie said as she lassoed the top post of the above landing and pulled herself up in under a second. At Reynie's call, she spun around. He headed up the stairs towards her and, panting, reached the same landing about 30 seconds later.

"Oh, hi, boys," she said warily.

"Where are you?" asked Sticky. "I mean, obviously you're here. But where have you been? Why aren't you talking to us? Are you mad at me?"

Kate raised an eyebrow. "Of course I'm not mad at you. I've just been tired."

"Oh. Okay. Well, why don't you join us in our room?" asked Sticky.

"I'm about to go to bed, actually," she said. "But thanks for the invite. I'll see you guys tomorrow at breakfast."

"At breakfast?" Reynie asked, somewhat dismayed. Kate had had a habit of jumping from the ceiling into his room to wake him up hours before breakfast and they would go and explore around the house together, but she hadn't done that in what felt like forever. Why not? What had alienated her?

She cast him a peculiar, hard-to-read look – it was dark, after all – and, shaking her head, waved at both of them and disappeared to her room.

"I'm so fumbling with girls, I'll liable to fall in love with Kate next," said Sticky, feebly trying to crack a joke (this was, in fact, an improvement on the old Sticky who didn't know appear to know what a joke was).

At this, Reynie, who'd been staring into space and mulling over the reasons for Kate to be ignoring him, jumped and said sharply, "What?"

"I'm just joking," said Sticky. "Oh dear… that wasn't very funny, was it."

"What? No, no, but are you serious?"

"Of course not," Sticky said, sighing. He knew he would never make it as a comedian, but couldn't help feeling that if Cleo was going to ever like him, he had to get this whole humor thing down. When Reynie didn't respond, he elaborated, "She's like my sister. I think we're best friends. Or friends. I don't really know."

"Oh, yeah, she's like my sister too," said Reynie quickly. "Here, let's go back to my room."

Sticky followed morosely, and they returned to Reynie's room to find the dresser drawers hanging open and the floor littered in glittery candy wrappers.

So what do you think? I'm going to stick some more Sticky/Cleo into the next chapter, but as this is a primarily Kaynie fic I'm obviously going to focus more on that relationship. I have some action – well, not action yet, but new villain (sneak peek: it looks like one of Milligan's old enemies hasn't yet exited the picture, or at least his legacy hasn't) planned in the following chapters. Thank you for your reviews and support, and please do let me know what you think of it, what you want to see happen next, etc. as always.