The lingering warmth from Louis’s touch, the shared vulnerability of their late-night confession, still hummed beneath Cheryl’s skin as she approached her studio. It was a new kind of energy, a potent blend of artistic inspiration and nascent affection that made her steps lighter, her mind sharper. 

Today, she was tackling the heart of the “Cosmic Bloom” sequence for the gala – the moment of stellar ignition, a scent designed to capture the explosive beauty of a star’s birth. She had meticulously planned the formula, a complex dance of aldehydes, rare spices, and a whisper of metallic ozone, all meant to unfurl like a nascent sun.

She pulled out her carefully labeled vials, her precise measuring tools, and the formula sheet she’d left on her workbench the previous evening. A quick glance at the handwritten notes, a familiar ritual before beginning. 

But as her eyes scanned the lines, a faint frown creased her brow. The ratio for the osmanthus absolute, a crucial element for the initial warmth and light, seemed… off. 

It was listed as three drops, not the five she distinctly remembered. And the vetiver, meant to ground the nascent star with an earthy depth, was marked for double the intended amount.

Cheryl paused, her internal olfactory memory already recoiling from the imagined imbalance. Three drops of osmanthus would render the opening thin, almost skeletal, while the heavy vetiver would drag it down, suffocating the delicate bloom. 

Had she been so lost in conversation with Louis last night that she’d miswritten it? It was unlike her. 

Her formulas were her sacred texts, precise and unwavering. She usually double-checked everything.

She sighed, attributing it to a rare lapse in concentration, perhaps the lingering haze of emotion from her time with Louis. “Must be more careful,” she murmured to herself, erasing the incorrect numbers and scribbling in the correct ones. 

It was a minor setback, easily rectified, but it cost her precious minutes, and a flicker of self-reproach.

Later that afternoon, as she began the delicate process of cold distillation for a batch of stellar dust accord, her specialized glassware, usually pristine, seemed to have developed a hairline crack. It was barely visible, a spiderweb fracture near the neck of the flask, but enough to compromise the vacuum seal. 

The distillation failed, the precious botanical materials ruined, and the entire process had to be restarted with a new, flawless flask. Another delay, another batch of expensive ingredients wasted.

“What is going on today?” Cheryl muttered, her frustration mounting. Two “accidents” in one day felt… unlucky. 

She prided herself on her meticulousness, her careful handling of equipment. She ran her fingers over the smooth glass of the new flask, a sense of unease starting to prickle at the edges of her calm.

The pattern, once noticed, seemed to accelerate. A crucial atomizer for the “Nebula Bloom” scent, meant for a test run in the observatory’s smaller projection room, mysteriously clogged, requiring a full day of cleaning and recalibration. 

Her specialized UV lamp, essential for curing certain resinous accords, flickered erratically, then died, necessitating an urgent replacement order. Each incident was small, deniable, easily explained away as wear and tear, or a momentary oversight. 

But collectively, they were a relentless drip, drip, drip of frustration, eating away at her schedule, her resources, and her peace of mind.

She found herself working later and later, trying to catch up, the easy flow of her creative process replaced by a frantic scramble. The joy of crafting, of translating Louis’s visions into scent, was slowly being eroded by these inexplicable hurdles.

It was during one such late-night session at the observatory, trying to troubleshoot a recalcitrant scent diffuser in the “Cosmic Bloom” zone, that Joyce made one of her increasingly frequent appearances. She glided into the cavernous space, her dark, tailored clothing a stark contrast to Cheryl’s more practical, paint-splashed apron.

“Cheryl, darling,” Joyce purred, her voice carrying a saccharine sweetness that grated on Cheryl’s already frayed nerves. “Still at it? Louis mentioned you were having some… technical difficulties. I thought I’d pop by. You know, offer a seasoned perspective.”

Cheryl straightened, her hand still on the temperamental diffuser. “Thank you, Joyce, but I think I have it under control.”