Edwin was both amused by and thankful for Charles' attentiveness, as it meant that he didn't have to trade out books himself, which in turn meant he wasn't trying to lift or carry things with his injured arm, and wasn't doing anything that might further aggravate the cracked ribs -and he still wasn't sure if they were fully broken or just cracked- but his breathing was easier than it had been the day before, near-asphyxiation by coffee aside.

It was midafternoon -after another snack break- that he finally felt like he was making some kind of headway, he'd at least sorted out what he thought the origin of the symbols was, though they didn't fully match anything in his current stack of research materials, that might just be due to a translation error, which was what had him giving Charles another trade of books to handle.

When Crystal arrived late that evening for her usual 'shift', Edwin was only slightly closer to figuring out what had happened, and the fact that she caught on right away that something had changed -and not just because of the food wrappers on the side table- didn't surprise him much, but he left it to Charles to explain as he was in the middle of translating a document and knew he'd lose the thread of it if he stopped in the middle.