She nods.  "I'd need to take a look at the service schedule, and I'd like to make use of any teaching supplies you might have while I'm still sorting out the manor, but this sounds like a decent agreement in principle.  I suppose it comes down to funds, but - really, I want to do this for how it will benefit the island, and that people are capable of throwing money at me for it...

"Kyros' Empire...it had currencies, but a lot of the distribution of resources was simply administrated.  At least when I was through with it.

"I find myself somewhat still adjusting to the mercantilism - and yet more to the idea that providing needful services to the community ought to result in my remuneration, beyond my costs incurred.  I especially despise the idea that I could be forced to hide knowledge behind a requisition of coin.

"Which is mostly to say that I would rather open the scholar's circle to all, and solicit donations, than even consider charging for admittance, but I am not certain if that's truly feasible."

"I don't know, the church does run on donations, but I don't think I've heard of schools run this way. Might be worth trying."

"...Maybe some sort of proportional scale.  I hardly wish to allow those who have more than enough wealth to pay for this entire island to attend for free."

"I'm sure you can figure something out. There aren’t that many children here, so shouldn't be overwhelming to find a way."

She nods.  "I can but hope.  ...We've some time yet before I should depart; would you like to tell me a bit about your histories?"

"Of course! We should go back to the rectory though."

"Certainly."

"So, Hush House." he rummages through the notes "It's a thousand-and-a-half years of history, so I've taken a liberty of separating it into five distinct periods or 'phases' - Dawn, Solar Gothic, Baronial, Curia and Nocturnal. 

The earliest reliable records I could track down are from year 599 - an Abbey of the Black Dove, sometimes called Abbey of the White Crow is established, a double foundation of monks and nuns. I think there was a much older temple here, possibly in the caves below the isle, but there aren't any surviving records, and the caves are flooded and unsafe. 

In eleventh century, the Abbey Church - St. Brandans - the biggest building, with the spire - is constructed, and the Abbey basically takes on its name, that's the beginning of Solar Gothic Phase. The outer walls and Watchaman's Tower are built, first in wood, then rebuilt in stone after the abbey gives shelter to a tree brougth by new Earl of Cornwall - Brian. The tree is said to flower white, black, and red, a different color every spring. 

Abbey continues to grow - three more towers - Winter, Barber's and Crucible are constructed, the church itself is expanded.

Then, in 1537, King Henry the Eighth initiates the Reformation, and investigates basically all monasteries across the country. St. Brandan is dissolved for 'debaucheries' of its monks, and the isle is granted to Hendrik Dewulf, a former mercenary captain, along with title of a Baron - thus, the Baronial Phase.

The future Dewulfs are more temperate, Thomas - Hendrik's son, is nicknamed 'Baron Silence', which, I think, is from where Hush House takes it current name. Thomas rebuilds Watchman's Tower into an observatory. His son, Giles, elopes with 'pale Hafren', though is later reconciled with his father, and their son Walter becomes third baron. The Grand Ascent - the main stairway of the house - is his work. Then there's Musgrave, fourth baron, he restores Winter Tower as a residence for Julian Coseley, a visiting scholar who assists with expansion of the library, the tower is after that known as Long Tower. His son, Gideon, fifth baron, is a notable healer, and does much of his work in Barber's Tower, known later as Motely Tower after him. 

Valentine, the sixth baron builds Gulllscry Tower, and is quite eccentric and fascinated with birds. He tragically falls from the tower top, and has no sons, so he becomes the last baron, and his daughter Eva inherits as first baroness - at nineteen.

Eva, known as 'the Pale Lady', opens the library, drawing visitors from across Europe and beyond, be it for sophisticated feasts in Hall of Division, some by her reputation. 

Eva never marries, after the incident with Wheelock, and in 1759, her nephew Sebastian is drowned during a war, leaving the family with no heirs. Eva drowns herself after learning of Sebasian's death, and thus ends Dewulf line.

That was... rather a lot even summarized. Any questions? There's even more about the Curia..."

"That is a lot, and it's - positively wondrous.  Even if it's also...

"Sad.  Sad, I think, is the way to describe all of this.  So much lost - so much loss."

"'Though much is taken, much abides' - the phrase that runs throughout Hush House history. Brancrug is no stranger to loss, yet it endures. It is sad, but also beautiful in its own way, like a setting sun."

"But why is it taken, and who is it that says we must merely abide?"

"That I do not know. In case of Dewulfs, it is said that when Hendrik suppressed a rebellion, rather brutally, a local oracle and rebel-leader, Red William, said a curse upon him - 'There will be no seventh of your line'. I don’t know whether the curse is real, but if you only count male line of barons, it does indeed stop at six, followed by rather a lot of drownings."

"...Black and white and red."

"...Pardon me, that just...stuck out.  It's not like red is an uncommon color, but I do find myself wondering if it's related to the blooming tree.  ...And fearing that I thought to wonder, truthfully; I cannot allow myself to descend into the depths of my own mind so deeply, when I am so unmoored.  Not when I have a duty to the Library, however coercedly.  Not when I have a duty to Brancrug's people."

She sighs, suddenly and visibly exhausted.

"It is always so much.  Just once I would love to experience a pleasant surprise."

"You take a lot on yourself, Ophelia. It is admirable, but I do wonder whether it's wise. You just came out of a terrible storm, it hasn't even been a day, and you're already striving to do so much. Brancrug is not going to collapse if you let yourself rest."

"Oh, the storm wasn't hardly anything.  I don't think I even took lasting damage.  But what came before it...

"I am not sure I have the words, which should itself say something about the circumstances.

"And yet, I cannot justify rest until I have finished some very needful work - like ensuring I'll stay fed, and making sure the manor isn't going to kill anything I don't ask it to, and seeing to the Keeper's house..."

"Perhaps one day you can tell me your history, when you're more settled."

"I would be honored to."

"As for now, Curia's history?"

"Yes, please."  She could do with the distraction.

"So, in 1785, a group of scholars - Ambrose Westcott, Kitty Mazarine, Solomon Husher - acquire the deed to the Dewulf estate, and establish 'Curia of the Isle', with Westcott becoming first Librarian of the Hush House. They establish Hush House as a haven of knowledge, a proper library. Westcott is rumoured to have died of apoplexy after a particularly hasty trample up and down the stairs to argue with visiting priests, Mazarine takes over as second Librarian, and later retires peacefully. Husher is the third, and he disappears, leaving only a resignation letter, in winter of 1838, when a heavy snow fell on the Hush House. 

Curia then has some trouble with finding a new Librarian, and Fraser Strathcoyne, Treasurer of the Curia, becomes the fourth, to his annoyance. As soon as they found a suitable candidate, Strathcoyne retired, and Natalia Brulleau became fifth Librarian. After her retirement, Curia is again short on candidates, until the arrival of Williem Harries, who presented the Curia with some 'key long lost', and was appointed sixth Librarian.

The next part is a bit muddy, I couldn't quite figure out when Harries retired or where he went, but Thirza Blake is appointed seventh Librarian, and it's also not clear why. I have no idea why Curia appointed her, she was, by all accounts, quite insane, and eventually, in 1896 brought Hush House to penury. 

Then the Nocturnal branch stepped in, marking another period transition. The Hush House received funding, but submitted to yearly inspections, and surrendered a portion of the Isle - mostly Crucible Tower, to be the Branch's prison. Eighth Librarian was probably also chosen in relation to that - Sir David Greene, a former Nocturnal Branch superintendent. George Collers, formerly Secretary Vigilant of the Curia, was appointed by the branch to be Governor of Cucurbit Prison, as Crucible Tower became known. 

Greene eventually retires, and Brian Levinsen becomes ninth Librarian. About that time, in 1902, something called 'Ortucchio Incident' happens, and Nocturnal Branch is dissolved and reogonized into Suppression Bureau, though it doesn't affect Hush House or Cucurbit much, and Collers remains its Governor.

Brian resigns in 1914 to go volunteer as medical officer in the Great War, and has died there. Serena Blackwood becomes the tenth Librarian, but resigns early over the tensions between her and Collers. Gervinus van Lauren was eleventh, up until the fire seven years ago. And now we are here, 1936, and you are the twelfth Librarian. I should pick a new period name."

"Want more information on anyone specifically? I have rather a lot here."

"...Williem Harries' mysterious disappearance was not a mysterious disappearance, this much I can be relatively certain of.  If he neither died nor was removed, he must have - ascended, somehow; I've no concrete information on how or as to what, but I would bet on it.  I know what Archons look like.  And that explains Thirza, somewhat.  If she wasn't an attempt to - emulate, contact, or influence whatever Willem became...

"It's not immediately relevant, though.

"Tell me about Governor Collers; does he still hold the position?  What are his policies like?"

...She is going to have to seriously consider what she wishes to make emblematic of her 'reign'.  "As for the name of a hypothetical period starting with myself...

"Be careful what you choose, please.  It may come to mean much more than you'd think any word could.

"Perhaps the Archonal, in lieu of any better ideas."  She laughs, but without much humor in it.  "The walking gods of Kyros' Empire were Archons, and Kyros then Archon of Archons and Overlord above, from within the ancient Spires of a long-lost people with far more command of the world than us mere primitives."

"Harries ascending in some way might fit, though I doubt Thriza is that related, she was... rather different from him."

"Collers most likely died in the fire, and no new Governor has been assigned, I have no idea what the Bureau currently thinks of the House. Before the fire, the gaol was used to contain things and people too dangerous for normal prisons, and I think Collers was as interested in studying them as containing. I don't know the detail on his policies, they were internal to the prison, and Bureau is not keen on outsiders peeking at its workings. People were sometimes released, I think there was at least one escape assisted by a lucky earthquake."

"Archonal it is, at least for now."

"-- I said be careful, not assign the first thing I think of, Rector; please leave that space in your notes blank.  At least for now."

She pinches the bridge of her nose, clearly mildly exasperated.

"An Archon is defined and empowered by the stories told of them, and I must be careful with mine - I've already dealt with three Archons, as a mere Fatebinder, and lived to tell the tale - and the regnant Archon of War got his title by killing the prior holder.  Not that that one didn't richly deserve it, he was working for the utter bastard whose general horribleness interrupted my diplomacy with the revelation that he'd most definitely gorged himself on the soul of one of Ashe's children, just to hurt the man - Graven Ashe being the Archon of War, and present at that meeting - but if you even make an Archon bleed, you're closer to holding your own double-edged blade, and I refuse to impale myself upon it by going about mythbuilding stupidly.  Especially after getting a bloody title for how I managed to actually make the seemingly invulnerable Archon of Stone feel pain, when he - having gone rogue, and refusing to even talk about talking about seeking peaceful resolutions - was trying to stop me from reading Kyros' Edict against him.  ...It took a catapultfull of strong acid.  I'm honestly surprised I was the first to try that.

"...It's one of my greatest regrets that I didn't have two.  Perhaps I would not have had to salt my own land, on Kyros' orders, with the fucking Edict of fucking Stone.  That didn't kill him either!

"...Edicts, by the way - with a Capital Letter - are...well, 'supernatural declarations of things that are Going To Happen, in the Empire's known memory only issued by Kyros Themself and a unique symbol of their authority'; I believe they're strongly linked to the ancients' Spires.

"...I may or may not have improvised something off of that framework to open the Manor's gates to me."  ...She seems almost embarrassed to admit to that exercise of hubris.  "And.  Well.  It worked.  To my own surprise."

"Oh, of course. Apologies for my rashness."

"That does indeed sound like a lot going on. I can’t even begin to understand half of what you're saying. I don’t think I ever heard of anything like Edicts being proclaimed directly, but Powers do listen to words spoken of their interests, right words in a right place at a right time have been known to call miracles or curses into the world. And the Hush House is certainly an important place."