'Why yes, I suppose I would.'
'Go find your own personal hell, dragon!'
'I've got a rather nice one here on Grixis, I should say. When you come up with a better trade, be certain to let me know. You're always welcome here, my dear Vess.'
Liliana stared, mouth working as though to voice some new argument she'd not yet considered, and Bolas had at least to give the mage credit. In his youth, had he been in her position, he might well have attacked, even knowing he could not prevail. But with the realization that there was nothing left to say, Liliana turned on her heel and strode from the chamber, and if her shoulders were slumped and even shaking, still she held her head high until she vanished from the dragon's sight.
Bolas flickered his tongue over the stone faces, as though tasting the flesh of those they represented, then uncoiled himself from around the pillar and crept through the tunnels until he reached his workroom. It, like many of his private chambers, utterly lacked a door; he breathed a few syllables of magic, scarcely an effort to one such as he, and caused the wall itself to open for him. Between racks of alchemical equipment and half-built artifacts, through spaces where his great bulk should never have fit, the dragon wound his way to a marble worktable in the cavern's center. Atop the great slab, dwarfed by the scale of the table and indeed the entire room, lay the object of his current endeavors.
No, Liliana's efforts had not restored to him the Infinite Consortium. But they had given him instead an opportunity even he had not foreseen. He'd needed to act fast, before the nezumi could ruin it beyond use. It had cost him greatly to acquire it and would require much labor on his part to make it functional once more, both inside and out. With the right repairs, though-and the right adjustments-it just might prove a greater tool than even the Consortium itself.
Nicol Bolas bent low over the mangled and mindless body of Tezzeret. 'Now, little artificer… What shall we do with you?'
