'Jace…'
'No! Even if you're right about everything else, how would we do it? Do you know every world the Consortium touches? The location of every cell, the name of every leader? How to build those aether-tubes so you can feel if someone needs to reach us? We can't rule the Consortium, Liliana!'
'We can once you pull that information out of Tezzeret's mind.'
'It's stupid, it's suicide, and it's not happening.' Jace lay back in the bed, suddenly desperate for more rest. 'I'm going back to sleep,' he continued, 'until I start feeling better. And then, if you're ready, we can talk about where to hide after we leave Ravnica.'
He winced at the sound but otherwise gave no notice as Liliana snarled and vanished into the teleportation pillar. And damn it, he wouldn't feel bad about this! It was a stupid idea. Asinine. The notion that they could somehow take the Consortium from
Tezzeret was as ludicrous as taking on the artificer himself. Liliana was fooling herself.
But when the pain finally subsided enough for Jace to return to sleep, his dreams were dreams of power.
Damn him!
Liliana stormed from the house, ignoring Emmara's questioning glance. For many minutes she walked the streets of Ovitzia, almost hoping someone would accost her, give her an excuse to really cut loose, but of course nobody did. Finally, as her mind began to clear, she found herself before a storefront that had already closed down for the evening.
It would suffice. A swift touch and the wood around the latch rotted away, allowing her to slip inside. She propped the door shut behind her, glancing around at the shelves of rope, hammers, nails, and lumber, smelled the overwhelming aroma of sawdust, and wondered briefly who in Ovitzia built with wood anymore. Then, with a shrug, she stepped away from the windows and began to breathe deliberately, steadily, relaxing for the effort to come.
For many long minutes she stood, unable to calm herself, her body tense. The moment of truth, now-and she had to admit, to herself if nobody else, that she didn't want to go through with it. This would hurt Jace, hurt him terribly, a thought that filled her with genuine remorse. It wasn't a feeling to which she was accustomed, and she found she didn't much care for it. For a few moments, Liliana Vess allowed herself to pretend that she might choose a different path.
But she knew she would not, that she could not, that any thought to the contrary was as immaterial as one of Jace's illusions. And if he wouldn't allow her to talk him into doing what must be done, then the suffering to come was his own fault.
They would both just have to live with it.
Liliana worked her magic and stepped away from the world of Ravnica.
'Anything?' Tezzeret asked, leaning back in his chair, etherium fingers interlaced with those of flesh and bone. His reflection stared up from the glossy metal panels before him, a warped and twisted view that just might have matched his soul better than the face he actually wore.
'No.' Baltrice took a deep breath. 'I got nowhere near the complex myself, as we agreed. But I did find a few of Paldor's surviving guards and sent them back to check. The cell's more or less lost, boss. Paldor, Sevrien, and Ireena are all mindwiped, the archives have been burned… There's nothing useful left.'
Tezzeret screamed, cursing Beleren's name in half a dozen languages, promised a thousand different deaths to the young mage, to any who harbored him, to any who spared him so much as a kind word or a friendly glance. Cracks spiderwebbed the desk as his fist struck it, again and again, allowing a foul-smelling elixir of oils and blood to leak from the eldritch mechanism. Baltrice, who had witnessed more than one such display in her years, took a careful step back and prepared a simple spell to ward off any further projectiles that might indiscriminately come her way.
None did, however, and the storm passed as swiftly as it had arisen, though the redness in his face and the quivering in his neck and jaw were more than sufficient evidence that it roiled still, just beneath the surface. 'Damn him…' Tezzeret muttered, having exhausted all his more colorful curses. 'The Ravnica cell was one of my best. Have you any idea how hard it was to set up?'
'Yes. I've been here through most of it,' Baltrice reminded him. He ignored her.
'Why?' he demanded of the Multiverse itself. 'Why come out of hiding now?'
Wisely, Baltrice didn't even try to respond.
Tezzeret sighed, the deep, heartfelt lament of the truly put-upon. 'I was too kind, that was my problem. Too kind, and too lazy. I should have made a greater effort to find him over the past years, and to put him out of my misery.'
As I told you, more than once, Baltrice noted silently.
Another sigh, and the room began to resound with the staccato beat of metal fingers on metal desk. And just as abruptly he froze, a far-off look on his face, a look that Baltrice had seen many times before.
'Who?' she asked him.
'Kamigawa,' he muttered after a moment. 'Just what I need right now. I swear, if that damn rat-shaman's interfered with another of our shipments…'
'Do you want me to deal with it?'
'No,' he told her. 'I'll handle it. It'll give me time to think, if nothing else.'
The room into which Tezzeret eventually walked was highly ornate. Silk curtains in bright hues, chosen to perfectly offset the darker rugs, draped the walls and the open doorways. Paper lanterns illuminated the chamber in a dim yet steady glow, and the scent of heavy incense was almost overwhelming.
Standing before him, bowing low in a show of great respect, was a seemingly young woman clad in a dark kimono, her hair hanging loose around her ears. Only the narrowness of her features and the pale hue of that hair suggested a faint trace of the tsuki-bito moonfolk in her ancestry. The third leader of the Kamigawa cell in as many years, she'd inherited a dangerous post, and Tezzeret honestly didn't think much of her long-term chances. The shaman of the Nezumi-Katsuro had not only never forgiven the attack that claimed the life of his shogun, he'd killed half a dozen Consortium agents, as well as tortured and murdered the cell's prior leader, in an effort to coax Tezzeret into facing him personally. His most recent challenges had been addressed to the 'Metal-Armed Emperor,' suggesting that he'd learned much from his interrogation of the prior cell lieutenant.
Tezzeret, of course, couldn't be bothered to deal with the rat himself. The cell would handle it eventually, no matter how many leaders it had to go through in the process.
'What is it, Kaori?' he asked gruffly, glancing at the broken shards of tubing on the wall. 'You know how hard it is to replace those.'
'My sincerest apologies, my lord,' she offered, her musical accent almost lost amid the buzzing of the gears. 'But there is one here who would speak to you, one whom you have employed in the past, and who swears she bears information that you must hear. She claims she knew of no other way to contact you.'
'Is that so?' Tezzeret furrowed his brow, then nodded as one of the curtains on the far wall drifted aside and a newcomer entered from the adjoining hallway.
'Well. Liliana Vess.'
'Tezzeret,' she greeted curtly.
'And to what do we owe-'
'Forgive me if I don't take the time for pleasantries,' she interrupted. 'I don't have a lot of time before I'm missed.'
'All right. I'm assuming this is important, since you damn well know better than to contact me like this.'
'Depends. Do you consider Jace Beleren important?'
Tezzeret leaned forward like a hound straining against his leash. 'You know where he is?'
'Not exactly,' she lied. 'The ghosts from whom I've learned of his recent activities were not so specific. Either they don't know, or they have reason not to tell me. But they've told me much of his activities, past and recent, and I can tell you how to flush him out.'
The sun had set on Gnat Alley-or rather, the sun had set on one end of Gnat Alley, for the longest thoroughfare in all of Ravnica saw neither dusk nor dawn at the same moment on each tip. Here on the ground,
