Seven of Swords

The Seven is getting around rather than through. Strategy, evasion, deception, sometimes someone else's and sometimes yours. The figure is taking what he can carry and leaving the rest, which is either cleverness or theft depending on the story.

Deception, cunning, acting alone. Someone is not being straight. Check whether it is you. Also legitimate strategy: knowing what to leave behind.

Deception exposed, or a confession. Returning what was taken. Sometimes: getting away with it, and having to live with that.

Dishonesty, an affair, something concealed. Reversed, the truth surfacing.

Someone taking credit, a colleague operating in bad faith, or a strategy that depends on not being seen.

Fraud, theft, a deal with something undisclosed in it. Read everything.

Self-deception, the hardest kind to catch. The card asks what story you are telling yourself.

Hiding symptoms, from others or from yourself. Not following the protocol and reporting that you are.

A man creeps from a camp with five swords, leaving two planted behind, looking back over his shoulder with a smile. The tents are occupied. He is taking most of it and not all of it, which is its own kind of calculation.

Golden Dawn called it Unstable Effort. Waite's reading includes "a plan that may fail". The card is not confident about the outcome of its own scheme.