The scales supply energy for leaf and flower growth, but since the business ends of the bulb are intact (the basal plate and stem) it should survive (as long as there are enough scales left that it isn't totally depleted by leafing out). If you want to be very safe you could break off the flower buds when they arrive so that there is no wasted bulb energy. Then the only energy used would be to produce leaves that would return the favor through photosynthesis to help it build back up for next year. Sometimes stressed bulbs do the dirty work for you by producing only shriveled buds (bud blast). But no flowers are no fun! So, if you want to be a bit riskier, leave it be and baby it a little this season (weed and mulch so it doean't have any competition) and hopefully it will flower.

-Helen

Hi Linnea,
You are so not alone on that one. It always seems to be those most expensive, hard to find ones too.
I like to think of it as increasing the number of bulbs, maybe no flowers this year, but if you put the sliced off part back in the soil, more bulbs and flowers in a couple of years (if they have some of the basal plate on them).