A man tiptoes out of a camp with five swords bundled in his arms, looking back over his shoulder. Two swords are left stuck in the ground. Tents stand behind him under a yellow sky. Instead of a straight fight, he is using his head to slip away. It is clever. The catch is that he could not carry everything.
When this card appears, someone usually has something they are handling quietly on their own. Finishing the work your own way without telling the team, sliding out of an awkward conversation, using a gap in the rules. Sometimes a bit of craft is exactly what is needed. It does tend to leave something to explain later, though — those are the two swords left in the ground.
Reversed, what was hidden comes out. Either you get caught, or you say it yourself before that happens, and saying it first usually ends far more lightly. The other direction is putting down the solo plan and asking for help.
The card asks whether the trick you are using would survive the other person knowing about it. If it would, it is strategy. If it would not, it already deserves a different name.
It is often read only as 'someone is deceiving you', but the figure in the picture is more often you. Before it warns about other people's tricks, it asks how far over the line you are stepping yourself.
With the Magician the skill is real, and the reading leans toward using it openly. With the Moon there is a lot being hidden on all sides, so it is wiser not to trust anything that has not been checked.