to Marina, from Demon, on Van's birthday; and that Aqua had a miscarriage in a skiing accident. It later transpires that Marina gave the child to her sister to replace the one she had lost—so she is in fact Van's mother—and that her affair with Demon continued until Ada's conception. This makes Lucette (Dan and Marina's child) the uterine half-sister of both of them. Van returns to Ardis for a second visit in the summer of 1888. The affair has become strained because of Van's suspicions that Ada has had another lover and the increasing intrusion of Lucette (their now-12-year-old half-sister) into their trysts (an intrusion that Van half-welcomes with conflicted feelings). This section ends with Van's discovery that Ada has in fact been unfaithful, and his flight from Ardis to exact revenge upon those "rivals" of whom he is aware: Phillip Rack, Ada's older and weak-charactered music teacher; and Percy de Prey, a rather boorish neighbour. Van is distracted by a chance altercation with a soldier named Tapper, whom he challenges to a duel and by whom he is wounded. In hospital he chances upon Phillip Rack, who is dying, and whom Van cannot bring himself to exact revenge upon. He then receives word that Percy de Prey has been shot and killed in Antiterra's version of the ongoing Crimean War. Van moves to live with Cordula de Prey, Percy's cousin, in her Manhattan apartment, whilst he fully recovers. They have a shallow physical relationship, which provides Van with respite from the emotional strain of his feelings for Ada. Part 2: 11 chapters (1888–1893) Van spends his time developing his studies in psychology, and visiting a number of the "Villa Venus" upper-class brothels. In the autumn of 1892, Lucette, now having declared her love for Van, brings him a letter from Ada in which she announces she has received an offer of marriage from a wealthy Russian, Andrey Vinelander. Should Van wish to invite her to live with him she will refuse the marriage offer. Van does so, and they commence living together in an apartment Van has purchased from Ada's old school-friend, and Van's former lover, Cordula de Prey. In February 1893, their father, Demon, arrives with news that his cousin (Ada's supposed father, but actual stepfather) Dan has died following a period of exposure caused by running naked into the woods near his home during a terrifying