The Deck

The full working deck is the complete drawable roster from Part Five — fifty-two figures across five drawable tiers, each carrying two readings, Tending and Fraying, described fully in the next chapter — plus the Infinite Boundary, which is never drawn at all. For scale: a tarot deck runs seventy-eight cards and a poker deck fifty-two, so this is the same size as the second and smaller than the first. The size is not the point; the coverage is. A roster small enough to find your way around, and wide enough that a pattern has somewhere to be found when you finally meet it, is doing something a short list cannot.

What follows is a compressed reference, not a replacement for Part Five’s catalogue — read there for the mechanism and the fusion lineage; use this when you’re actually weaving and need the meaning at a glance.

The Self-Kin (innermost ring)

Third	Tending	Fraying
The Spark	It’s catching faster. Each gain feeds the next, and whatever you started is picking up speed.	It’s slowing. Each gain feeds the next a little less, and the push you had is fading.
The Tide	You’re snapping back to your usual level faster each time something pulls you off it.	You’re drifting further from your usual level each time, and coming back slower.
The Mark	You’re weighing things against an old mark more, and it holds firmer each time you use it.	The old mark you weigh things against is fading, and it shapes your choices less.
The Salve	You’re reaching for relief sooner and more often, each easing making the next reach quicker.	You’re reaching for relief less often, and letting the ache sit longer before you act.
The Nearest Light	Your first thought is weighing more, and each quick call makes the next one come faster.	Your first thought weighs less now. You’re waiting longer for what shows up later.
The Keepsake	You’re keeping each time more by its peak and its ending, and the rest is fading faster.	The peak and the ending hold less sway, and more of the whole time stays with you.
The Easier Door	You’re swapping hard questions for easier ones more often, and the easy answers feel surer.	You’re swapping less often. More hard questions get met as asked, and more slowly.
The Mask	Your story about yourself is holding tighter, and each fact you set aside makes it surer.	Your story about yourself is loosening, and more of what you see is slipping in.
The Mirror	You’re taking your shape from whoever is near, faster and more fully with each new person.	You’re taking less of your shape from the room, and staying more the same across people.
The Namer	What you say about what’s next is building it faster, each word shaping more of what follows.	Your words shape less of what follows, and what you name drifts from what gets built.
The Riverbed	Your setup makes one action easier each time, so it happens more, with less thought.	Your setup steers you less, and that action takes more effort and comes less often.
The Gardener	Your attention keeps coming back to one thing, and it’s growing larger and deeper each visit.	Your attention is drifting to other things, and what it used to visit grows slower and fades.

The Dyad-Kin (second ring)

Third	Tending	Fraying
Escalation	You’re both aiming higher, faster, each step up pushing the other’s next aim further.	You’re both aiming less above each other, and the climb is slowing toward level.
The Standoff	Each pull meets a harder pull back, so what you share holds tighter near the middle.	Each pull meets a weaker pull back, so what you share drifts further to one side.
The Pairing	The steady one answers each push harder and sooner, holding you both closer to one level.	The steady one answers more loosely, so each push runs further before it’s pulled back.
Watering Another	Each time you notice it in them, it comes up faster, until it grows on its own.	You’re noticing it less, or it lands less, and it comes up slower in them.
Answering For	Your quick answers leave them working less out alone, so they ask faster and lean harder.	You’re answering slower or less often, and they’re working more out alone and asking less.
Filling the Gap	Your early story about them is holding tighter, and more of what they do bends to fit it.	Your early story about them is loosening, and what they do bends less to fit it.
The Guard	You’re both answering in kind faster. Openings draw you closer; walls push you further apart.	You’re matching each other less, so an opening or a wall gets a weaker answer.
Reading the Room	You’re catching each other’s tension faster, and your moods are holding more tightly matched.	You’re catching less of each other’s tension, and your moods drift further apart.
Connection First	Warmth is coming first sooner each time, and what follows meets less resistance.	Warmth comes first less often, and what you say meets more resistance.
The Rising Bar	Each step you reach lifts the next goal higher, and you’re climbing faster.	Each step you reach lifts the next goal less, and the climb is slowing toward a resting height.
The Sliding Floor	Your bar tracks your last result more closely, so effort and results climb or sink faster as one.	Your bar follows your last result less, and effort and results are moving slower and steadying out.
The Shared Story	Each telling fills more gaps from the other’s memory, and your two stories are blending into one.	You’re going over it together less, and each memory is drifting back to its own version.
The Echo	You each read the other more surely, and each part played makes the next reading firmer.	Your reading of each other draws the part out less, and each part played proves it more weakly.
Typecasting	The more they’re seen one way, the more they act it, and the surer the view gets.	The view of them is holding less tightly, and what they do strays from it more often.
Gaming the Terms	Each stricter line is met faster by a way around it, and the next line comes sooner.	Ways around the line are coming slower and rarer, and the line gets tightened less often.
The Naming Contest	Each name you give is met faster with theirs, and the back and forth grows more insistent.	Names are met slower or not at all, and the back and forth is quieting.
The Unbridged Gap	The more you know, the harder it gets to picture not knowing it, and the gap widens.	What you know blocks your view of other minds less, and the gap is slowly narrowing.
The Arrangement	Each setup draws a counter-setup faster, and you’re both building more around each other.	Each setup draws less answer, and the building around each other is slowing and settling.
The Tested Price	The first number named is holding tighter, and each later offer stays closer to it.	The first number’s hold is loosening, and later offers drift further and stand on their own.

The Skein-Kin (third ring)

Third	Tending	Fraying
Held Silence	Each quiet person makes the rest wait longer, and the silence is settling deeper.	The quiet holds people back less, and it’s thinning until someone speaks first.
Transmission Drift	Each telling shifts the story more, and the shifted version is told faster and held surer.	Each telling shifts it less, and the story is moving slower away from what happened.
The Faithful Chain	Each learner copies more closely and passes on more steps, even ones no one can explain.	Each learner copies less closely and passes on fewer steps, and the craft changes along the way.
First-Arriver Lock-In	Each win pays more toward the next, and the leader is pulling ahead faster.	Each win pays less toward the next, and the trailing side is closing in.
The Shared Pot	What each side takes or gives lands harder on the other, and the answer comes back faster.	What each side takes or gives lands less, and the other’s answer is weaker and slower.
The Reputation	The group leans on your role more, and it grips you tighter each time you fill it.	The group leans on your role less, and you’re drifting in and out of it more freely.
The Settling	Each small slip in what’s expected makes the next easier, and the level is sinking faster.	Each slip pulls the level down less, and expectations sink slower before they hold.
The Hall of Mirrors	Each hidden doubt makes others hide theirs faster, and the group is agreeing more quickly.	Doubts are slipping out more often, and the group agrees less quickly.
Second-Order Design	What the rules make shows up more clearly to those who set them, and changes follow closer.	What the rules make reaches the rule makers less clearly, and the rules drift from what they cause.
The Inner Circle	More short words are made and shared, and newcomers have to learn them faster to join in.	The group’s short words are fading, and talk is growing plainer for newcomers.
The Only Road	More between the two worlds runs through you, and the other paths are fading further.	Less is passing through you, and other paths between the two worlds are opening up.

The Culture-Kin (fourth ring)

Third	Tending	Fraying
The Shared Name	The name is pulling its people closer, and the closer they get, the more it means.	The name pulls its people together less, and it means less each time it’s passed on.
Proxy Detachment	Effort is aiming harder at moving the number, and the number climbs faster and is called a win more surely.	Effort aims less at the number, and it climbs slower and is called a win less often.
Policy Resistance	Each push to change things meets a harder push back, and the whole holds more firmly.	Each push meets a weaker push back, and the whole drifts further before it returns, or moves.
The Long Cycle	Each round of growth feeds the next more, and the rise and the fall are both growing.	Each round feeds the next less, and the swings rise and fall more gently.
The Received World	Handed-down ways are followed more surely, and why they started matters less to anyone.	Handed-down ways are followed less surely, and people ask more often why they began.
The Slow Hand	People here hold each other to the easiest way more tightly, and the setup sets firmer.	People hold each other to the easiest way more loosely, and other ways are spreading.
Independent Convergence	More separate seekers are landing on the same answer, and each match makes it surer.	Fewer separate seekers land on the same answer, and each match carries less weight.

The World-Kin (beyond the four rings, entering a reading only when the question is genuinely about the world)

Third	Tending	Fraying
The Standing Account	A people is counting itself more closely, and steering by the counts more firmly.	The counts track less closely, and steering by them is growing looser.
Second Nature	Built ways fit daily life more closely, and the closer they fit, the less anyone notices.	Built ways fit daily life less closely, and people notice more often that someone made them.
The Set Course	Each thing built on an early choice makes it harder to leave, and the course sets deeper.	Each thing built on the early choice binds it less, and leaving is growing easier.

The Cosmos scale — never drawn. The Infinite Boundary is the one figure in this whole deck that never gets pulled from anything, because there’s only one of it and it’s already true of every Weaving before a single card is turned over. It isn’t a ring of its own. It’s the edge the other rings already sit inside, present by default, worth naming once at the start of a Weaving rather than drawn as a variable within it — a reminder that whatever the four cards show, the whole reading is still one small, summed part of something no card was ever going to capture on its own.