5.Andrey Stamatin: Twins are the two sides of a single person. Each of them pulls in their own direction. Each sees their own side of things.

5.Andrey Stamatin: I am luckier than you. I have a beloved brother.

5.Andrey Stamatin: You're not going to believe it. For my creations! The Downgate, the Alley of Heroes ensemble, The Other Stairway Round. The House House was specifically renounced by the World Association of Architects. Even though it's always been my little brother and me... I am usually the one to take the beating.

5.Andrey Stamatin: What?! Is that what Rubin said? Bullshit. Five years ago it spread like fire in a dry forest. Burakh managed to grab it by the tail back then. If it were the Sand Plague again, drama queens would have spread it all over the place yesterday. The town would have been crammed full of dead men by today.

5.Andrey Stamatin: Anyone who touches her will have to deal with me afterwards. That's reason enough already.

5.Andrey Stamatin: No. I'm not being metaphoric, these are the facts. There was moaning and howling all over Earth-moaning louder than the mourning siren at the Works. The tormented were screaming so loudly glass would break in the windows-and it all happened over the course of several hours. That is what the Sand Pest is. So knock your bullshit off.

5.Andrey Stamatin: Right. Let's do the preparations separately then. Here's some money. The black market around here is run by a mongrel calling himself Bad Grief... Have you met the rodent already?

5.Andrey Stamatin: Then we need to buy ammo. By the way, these old cavalry revolvers are verified to misfire often. You'd be better off carrying several guns, just like in the good old days. When one of them fails, another will work.

5.Andrey Stamatin: They've heard a wheeze, heard sobbing and breathing-very heavy, as if it were a whale. Those are apparent signs of the hair-eater. Here and there; by the window, by the wall; behind the corner. Scared shitless, people then come here to forget themselves and the nightmare.

5.Andrey Stamatin: No, old boy. It's not their idiocy that makes them go looking for the shabnak. No man can enter Focus. I'm telling you this as a professional and a legitimate architect. My idea of what is and is not possible is rather uncommon too, trust me. Still, no man could have gotten to Simon there.

5.Andrey Stamatin: We maintain balance on our own; nature has nothing to do with it. Our choices are what establishes the harmony that is essential for survival. Now is the time for them to realize it-now, when this balance has been disrupted by Simon's death. Katerina won't be able to rule like Nina or Victoria did. She has neither the power nor the talent.

5.Andrey Stamatin: Alexander? Don't make me laugh. He borrows resolve from his spouse. Katerina can see the future-well, at least she is supposed to... It was Nina Kaina and Victoria Olgimskaya that ruled over us when they were alive. The rulers were nurturing the body of the town, while their wives were fostering its soul.

5.Andrey Stamatin: And the unnatural holes-don't even get me started! Who can tell if the body wants to be opened? How is it meant to be cut? A carcass only welcomes the touch of a master. The cut of a master follows the line that liberates the body from itself.

5.Andrey Stamatin: Pardon me? Since the head standing before me is celebrated for its inability to utter commonplace truisms, I can only assume that the wisest of bachelors is laughing at me. Or do they explain any taboo with this drivel in the Capital these days?

5.Andrey Stamatin: And why not? Muggers and killers hold nothing sacred-so they are exempt from sacred laws and traditions. They pulled their knives first. You're free to disembowel them, tear their arms off, and perforate them to your heart's content.

5.Andrey Stamatin: Katerina is not talentless. That means you will die sooner or later. Nothing to be done about it.

5.Andrey Stamatin: Who are you calling executives?

5.Andrey Stamatin: She claims to be a political case. But really, look at her-does she really look like she belongs to the underground? She has nothing to do with the February revolt. Although... when there's smoke, there's fire. I think the sweet girl used to serve as a cover for the Ace of Diamonds Caravan. And if my guess is right, I wonder what her position was. We're all monsters here, see? A town of freaks... eh?

5.Andrey Stamatin: Every Kain possesses this gift-the ability to see the unseen and achieve the unachievable. This art doesn't have a name because very few people have mastered it. Maria is concealing her true power for the time being, but it has already become apparent that she will stop at nothing when the time comes. Her sheer power will justify any despotism that would spring from it.

5.Andrey Stamatin: Not at all. The Kains may seem like unpredictable petty tyrants-but we have them to thank for that horrendous civil war passing our town by! The Powers That Be... Can't you see? Instead of building a utopia in this wreck of a country, they're tearing the last scraps of the good that had been done by their predecessors into even smaller scraps. Do you think it's easy to make a stand in a situation like this?

5.Andrey Stamatin: Are you implying we're doing it out of cowardice?

5.Andrey Stamatin: Uh huh. She's not much of a talker. The dead offer her company more often than the living. She used to look after the graves since she was a child-and that obviously messed with her little head. She's a guardian spirit of the local cemetery, just like the Mother Superior is the guardian spirit of the Termitary.

5.Andrey Stamatin: You see, my dear brother is seeing pink elephants. He's talking to bottles. The conversations seem to be enlightening, too-he mostly does the listening. And so he got it into his head... As far as I understood, he decided that he was at his limit and wanted to try his luck.

5.Andrey Stamatin: What? Did something else happen?

5.Andrey Stamatin: But Burakh has disappeared once again... The only person he's having relatively regular business with is Fat Vlad. But he's denying the fact. He says Burakh comes when he pleases and doesn't keep him in the loop. So whose blood has Burakh taken?

5.Andrey Stamatin: The blood. Or maybe you've seen him extract it? They say it was a girl...

5.Andrey Stamatin: I was there when he himself was informed about them. That is what saved me. I rushed to the cannon, started asking questions about an executed architect. They said they've arrested a lot of rabble-to execute at dawn. And then they offered special treatment to me-I barely escaped with a whole skin.

5.Andrey Stamatin: You know, it's so peculiar that you're only asking about it now... In fact all these days I've been waiting for you to finally become interested in the foundation of the miracle! Weren't you surprised in the slightest? It would be easier to show you though... I'd have supported my words with documents if Peter hadn't burned the blueprints.

5.Andrey Stamatin: Oooh... We dug a trench. The riverbed was dry at that time. It was an insane idea. But the Kains asked Vlad to summon up the Kin, and he did. This collective construction has been worked on by the whole Termitary. We laid the pintle down gradually-and we dug its very sting underground at an acute angle.

5.Andrey Stamatin: Oh no, it isn't! Take the Abattoir-and old body, an organ petrified with age, the thing that the earth breathes through. A vociferous spirit inhabits it-a spirit devoid of history, memory, name, or kin. An ancient lifeforce that has in reality been long dead.

5.Andrey Stamatin: Exactly. There is no Andrey, only the brothers Stamatin, the twins. We are worthless without one another, and together we are worth more than any of the old school masters. For Peter's fantasies have no limits-he's too naïve for that-and I have the genuine freedom of action.

5.Andrey Stamatin: I received a farewell letter from Eva informing me that she was planning to take her own life at the Cathedral. Convinced that a miracle would be there for her, she wanted to jump from the balustrade and fly... an insane, rambling letter, apparently written by an already deranged person.