5 cards
Relationship spread
The Relationship spread uses 5 cards in fixed positions — you, them, the connection, what helps, what hinders. Five cards separating your side, their side and the thing between you. Use it when you are tempted to read the whole deck as being about one person.
How many ways it can fall
81,066,585,600 possible relationship spreads
5 positions drawn without replacement from 78 cards, each landing upright or reversed: 78 × 77 × … × 25. That is more combinations than there are seconds in a human lifetime, which is why the same spread twice is not something you will see.
Reversals double the count at every position. Readers who ignore them are working with 2,533,330,800 instead — still plenty, but a different deck of possibilities.
The positions
Use it when you are tempted to read the whole deck as being about one person.
How to read it
Lay the cards face down in order, then turn them one at a time and say what you see before reaching for a meaning. The image comes first; the book comes second.
Read positions against each other rather than in isolation. In a three-card spread the interesting information is usually in the gap between the first and the third — what has to change for one to become the other.
Reversals are optional. Decide before you shuffle, not when an unwelcome card appears.