The forty numbered minors are a grid. Four suits across, ten numbers down. Learn the ten stages and you can read any of the forty by combining two things you already know, which is a great deal less work than forty separate entries.

The arc

• Ace — the raw start. Nothing built yet. The offer is still on the table.
• Two — a pair, a balance, a choice between two things.
• Three — the first result, and other people are now involved.
• Four — stability. Solid. Depending on the suit, a rest or a rut.
• Five — loss and disruption. Every Five breaks what the Four had settled.
• Six — recovery. Help arrives, movement resumes, the worst is behind.
• Seven — a test taken alone. Doubt, patience, temptation, holding your ground.
• Eight — effort at scale. Real work, real speed, or a situation you have to walk out of.
• Nine — nearly there and carrying the weight of it. The most personal number in the deck.
• Ten — the cycle ends, for better or worse. Completion, or a load that has outgrown one pair of hands.

Aces are offers

An Ace never says a thing has happened. It says a door is open. The Ace of Cups is the possibility of love, not the relationship. The Ace of Pentacles is the offer, not the salary. What becomes of it is decided by the cards around it, and quite often the answer is nothing.

Tens are honest about the bill

Two of the four Tens are joyful and two are exhausting. That is the point. Finishing a cycle is not automatically a reward.

When a Ten shows up, ask what is actually ending. Then ask whether the person in the reading has noticed that it ended some time ago.