Threads of a Gilded Clock

Chapter 2: Behind Gilded Doors

The light here should’ve smelled like citrus and oil paint. But as she inhaled, Aurelia caught something else, a faint but unmistakable trace of something more industrial. Smoky. Sharp. It hung in the air like an afterthought: gunpowder? No...maybe just gasoline? Whatever it was, it didn’t belong. It made her chest itch.

She blinked the thought away as they passed an older man sanding the base of a sculpture. Near him, another artist sat cross-legged on the floor, charcoal stains smudged across her jeans. Her model, draped in silk and wine-colored shadows, stared through Aurelia like a ghost.

Aurelia’s gaze flicked toward the far end of the space, to a small corner near a tall, paned window. It was quieter there, not entirely forgotten, but clearly apart. A narrow desk sat empty beneath the window, half in sunlight, half in shadow. No art supplies were laid out, just a chipped stool, a lamp with a crooked neck, and a lone set of shelves holding curled sketch paper and an old tin of graphite sticks.

It wasn’t glamorous. But it looked… peaceful. Like a place someone could breathe, unnoticed.

Bianca must have seen her looking. “That’s open,” she said, voice flat. “Probationary station. If you’re offered a contract, that will be your corner. For now.”

“For now,” Aurelia echoed, unable to keep the smile out of her voice. It wasn’t much. But it was something. A place to begin.

Bianca didn’t smile back.

“You’ll find that inspiration isn’t enough here,” she said coolly, already walking again. “Execution matters more than passion. Passion fades.”

Aurelia hesitated for half a breath, then followed.

As she walked, the scent came again, faint, almost phantom. Like burnt oil or machine smoke clinging to clothes too clean to admit it. She glanced once over her shoulder, but everyone was working as if nothing was wrong.

And still, the feeling lingered, that she was an intruder in a sacred place, a misstep away from being exposed. Everyone else belonged. She was still waiting for permission.

Next came the chemical department, and it was a world apart.

Gone were the vibrant canvases and chaotic beauty of the art zone. Here, everything was surgical. Clean. Controlled.

White lab coats moved in smooth, deliberate motions across a pristine space that gleamed with sterility. Stainless steel tables reflected the overhead fluorescent lights in long, cold strips. The walls were lined with modular shelving, each shelf stacked with meticulously labeled glass beakers, test tubes, and crystalline jars. Some held liquids in every imaginable hue, from clear like water to viscous indigo that shimmered under the lights. Others cradled powders with unnatural glints, like ground stars trapped in glass.

The air was biting with sharpness, lemon-sanitizer and ethanol mixed with something vaguely medicinal, metallic, almost too clean. It caught in Aurelia’s throat. She blinked quickly, eyes watering slightly. There was no trace of the lingering gunpowder-scent from the art wing, but something colder coiled just beneath the lemon. Something sterile enough to hide danger.

“This,” Bianca said with a flick of her hand, “is where our product lines get their longevity. Weather-resistant coatings. Proprietary dye suspensions. Scent infusion formulas. Adhesives engineered to last decades.”