Threads of a Gilded Clock

The first thing Aurelia noticed about Aurum Arte was the smell, subtle, and expensive, like aged paper and citrus oil. The second was how soundlessly the massive glass doors closed behind her. The air inside was cool, silent, reverent. Like walking into a museum that lived and breathed. She didn’t want to move, afraid she’s break something and spend the rest of her life in debt; she was out of her element, that's for sure. 

The receptionist didn’t even look up when she entered, too focused on the screen in front of her. But then a woman with a tightly wound bun and perfectly pressed suit approached from the hallway. She moved like a metronome; every step deliberate and precise. 

"You must be Aurelia Thorne," the woman said, her accent clipped, Italian, but tinged with something else, French, perhaps. "I'm Bianca. The director has asked me to give you a tour before your interview with Mr. Moretti. Come." 

Aurelia blinked. “Uh… Tour?”

Bianca didn’t return the look. “Standard procedure,” she said crisply, already walking away. “This firm is compartmentalized. Discretion and specialization are paramount. Please. Follow me.”

The click of Bianca’s pointed heels echoed against the polished marble, sharp and even. Aurelia fell in step behind her, suddenly aware of every sound her shoes made. The corridor was cavernous, modern elegance sculpted into stone and light. It should have felt welcoming, but it didn’t. Not exactly. It was too perfect.

Bianca didn’t speak again until they passed under an archway of black steel and frosted glass. “The art department,” she said coolly, sweeping her hand out with mechanical grace. “Mixed media. Oil, acrylic, watercolor, digital, kinetic sculpture. Seniors get enclosed studios. Everyone else works under skylights.”

The space opened like a secret being revealed.

It was beautiful, unnervingly so. Aurelia’s eyes widened.

The room breathed with life and color. Canvases, both wild and precise, lined the walls like silent witnesses. Overhead, angled skylights flooded the chamber with soft natural light, breaking over sculptures and workstations in shards of gold. Ceiling-mounted clamps held massive paintings mid-air, turning them into floating windows of emotion. Nearby, a metal mobile spun lazily on a draft, casting shifting shadows on the floor.

Artists worked in near silence. A woman wound wire into the outline of wings, her movements clinical. Another daubed thick paint onto canvas with a palette knife, her face unreadable. A third sat in a nest of digital screens, feeding scanned drawings into a projection mapping algorithm that lit up a wall with a stuttering aurora.

Aurelia opened her mouth, then closed it again. Her chest was tight. This place was alive with creativity.

"Gorgeous," she managed, quietly.

“If you’re hired,” Bianca said without turning, “you’ll be placed here. Probationary spaces are rotated monthly.”

She said it like Aurelia should already feel lucky.

Aurelia nodded, but her fingers itched. Her blouse felt stiff. Too new. Too safe. She didn’t wear the right kind of confidence, the kind these artists seemed to breathe like air. She moved between them like a foreign object, and every brushstroke, every wire twist, reminded her she hadn’t earned her place here. Not yet.