One number, four suits
The Nines in tarot
Nearly there, with the cost of getting here fully visible.
Nines are the last stage before completion, and each shows what the journey has taken out of the person making it.
Nine of Pentacles is the deck's best outcome: a woman alone in her own garden with a hooded falcon, self-sufficient and comfortable. Nine of Cups is having what you asked for, traditionally the wish card. Nine of Wands is bandaged and still standing guard, exhausted and not standing down. Nine of Swords is sitting up in bed at three in the morning with the swords on the wall.
The two comfortable Nines and the two brutal ones are not a contradiction. They are the same position seen from four elements.
The four Nines
The same idea in four elements. Reading them side by side is the fastest way to see what the number is doing and what the suit is doing.
Nine of WandsWands · Fire read the full meaningresilience, persistence, wariness
Nine of CupsCups · Water read the full meaningsatisfaction, wish fulfilled, contentment
Nine of SwordsSwords · Air read the full meaninganxiety, insomnia, dread
Nine of PentaclesPentacles · Earth read the full meaningindependence, self-sufficiency, earned comfort
The rest of the sequence
Ace through Ten, then the four court ranks. Reading down this list is reading the minor arcana as one story.
Number crossed with element
This is the whole trick to the minor arcana. Forty numbered cards look like forty things to memorise and are really ten numbers crossed with four suits. Learn what a Five does and what Cups are, and the Five of Cups is constructible before you have ever read its page.
The lesson on the numbers, Ace through Ten teaches the sequence properly, and the one on the court cards covers the sixteen that need their own study.