This is a specified relationship spread that uses nine cards to analyse where a romantic relationship is at and where it is headed. The first card shows where it is at now, and can be considered the significator. The second and third cards determine where your partner stands and how it relates to where you are at personally.
Above the stem, the three-card base of the layout, a cup forms. Cards #4 and #5 show each person's desires, meaning what they want to get out of this coupling. Above this, Cards #6 and #7 show the challenge that this pairing presents to each individual. The final two cards at the top form the rim of the cup, symbolic of the taste of the relationship to each person, which shows how things will turn out on each side.

The Future Outcome (To be read in tandem with the card to the right)![]() Knight of Cups |
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The Future Outcome (To be read in tandem with the card to the left)![]() 10 of Swords |
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Challenges Which May Arise for You![]() 4 of Swords |
Challenges Which May Arise for Your Lover![]() The Fool |
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Desires in Relation to Your Question![]() 9 of Wands |
Your Lover's Desires![]() 3 of Wands |
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Nature of Your Issue![]() Page of Swords |
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Your Lover's Current Position![]() Queen of Swords |
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The Current State of Things![]() Judgement |
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Her right hand raises the weapon vertically and the hilt rests on an arm of her royal chair the left hand is extended, the arm raised her countenance is severe but chastened; it suggests familiarity with sorrow. She is a bitter, unmerciful oppressor of those who fall under her reign.
Upright Meaning:
Widowhood, female sadness and embarrassment, absence, sterility, mourning, privation, separation, lack of empathy.
A lithe, active figure holds a sword upright in both hands, while in the act of power walking. He is passing over rugged land, and about his way the clouds are collocated wildly. He is alert and aware, looking this way and that, as if an expected enemy might appear at any moment.
Upright Meaning:
Authority, overseeing, secret service, vigilance, spying, examination.
The figure leans upon his staff and has an expectant look, as if awaiting an enemy. Behind are eight other staves – erect, in orderly disposition, like a palisade.
Reversed Meaning:
Obstacles, adversity, calamity, troubles.
A calm, stately personage, with his back turned, looking from a cliff's edge at ships passing over the sea. Three staves are planted in the ground, and he leans slightly on one of them.
Reversed Meaning:
The end of troubles, suspension or cessation of adversity, toil and disappointment.
The effigy of a knight in the attitude of prayer, at full length upon his tomb.
Upright Meaning:
Vigilance, retreat, solitude, hermit's repose, exile, tomb and coffin. It is these last that have suggested the design.
A watchdog warns a foolish youth that he is about to carelessly walk off a cliff. The Fool seems totally ignorant of his surrounding and the danger he is in.
Upright Meaning:
Folly, mania, extravagance, delirium, frenzy, intoxication, bewrayment, going nuts, inexperience, pettiness, immaturity, idiocy.
Graceful, and not warlike; riding quietly, wearing a winged helmet, referring to those higher graces of the imagination which sometimes characterise this card. He too is a dreamer, but the images of the side of sense haunt him in his vision.
Upright Meaning:
Arrival, approach – sometimes that of a messenger; advances, proposition, demeanour, invitation, incitement.
A murder victim, pierced by ten swords showing the act of excessive force.
Upright Meaning:
Pain, affliction, tears, sadness, desolation. It is not especially a card of violent death, but the feeling of utter victimisation and hopelessness.