“I don’t know if this’ll help, but I think she might be in a blue Porsche. I was stealing one when she tased me and had the keys in my hand. Other than that, I don’t know where she might be. Other than burning everything down.”

I take a moment to look out the window and watch Los Angeles in flames. A thick blanket of smoke has covered the city, the fires and streetlights glowing beneath. Occasionally one flares up over the smoke.

“She left a lot of these things,” Letitia says. “We can’t leave these lying around. If we break them, will the ones they’re connected to break?”

“Maybe,” I say. “I don’t know. As long as they haven’t been triggered, they—” An idea pops into my head. I wonder if it would work. I search the ceiling until I find what I’m looking for, a circular metal plate a few inches wide. Every ten feet or so there’s another one. I drag a ladder over from the corner of the suite underneath it and climb on top.

“What are you doing?”

“If I’m lucky, cooling things off a bit.” If I understand the magic that was used to link the tlepilli together it should be a one-shot deal. At the very least this should deactivate the tlepilli.

I cast a small fire spell and a flame appears at my fingertips. I hold it under the plate until it pops off from the heat, revealing a recessed sprinkler. A moment later, the sprinkler goes off.

Realizing what I was about to do, Letitia’s grabbed a piece of cardboard from the floor and put it over her head. It’s not helping much, but it’s keeping the worst of the water off her.

“Why aren’t the others going off?” I say, yelling over the waterfall roar of the sprinkler. I’m soaked to the skin. Considering the temperature is in the upper nineties, at the very least I’m not complaining.

“They all have their own sensors.” She drops the cardboard, puts her hands out toward the far end of the room over the pallets. The plates go red hot within seconds and pop off, the sprinklers kicking in a moment later.

“Fine. Be all efficient about it.”

“Do you think it’ll work?” I’m about to say it depends on what she means by “work,” but before I can answer her, a flash in the sky outside is followed by a peal of thunder.

“It’ll do something,” I say. The sprinklers will only go on for about five minutes. It might help the flames from spreading a little bit, but not by much.