An A to Z of Creepy Hollow Fae

C - Canttilee

Year of study: fifth

Assignment type: solo

I will not screw up my first solo assignment.

I stand in the corner of a classroom. The twenty plus desks are filled with children. Chattering, writing, laughing. Drawing diagrams of hanging men on the corners of their pages. The teacher has disappeared into a back room.

I locate the subject of my assignment perched on top of the globe on the teacher’s desk. It squats on its hind legs, its barbed tail draped across Africa. Fangs protrude from its mouth; heat rises in a shimmer from its boiling hot skin.

The canttilee. One of the few fae creatures humans don’t have their own stories about. It rubs its hands together, and I smell smoke. Crap. I do not need to have a burned down classroom on my assignment record.

The canttilee jumps off the globe and scuttles toward the nearest desk, its tiny arms raised above its head. I abandon the idea of using one of my guardian weapons. Dropping into a crouch, I thrust my hands forward and send a mini blizzard of snow toward the fire-creature. It shrieks, covering its head with its hands. A few seconds later all that remains is a sizzling, two-foot-high mound of snow.

I jump to my feet and hurry past the desks, thankful, as always, that I’m invisible to humans. I conjure up a net and fling it over the wriggling mound of snow. Now I just need something to put this little guy in so I don’t burn my hands on the way back to the Guild. I look around the classroom, and my eyes fall on the rubbish bin. I shrug. It’ll do.