Korva has at this point conclusively established that she's going to continue being a fucking dumbass at the convention. She has, at this point, done enough dumbassery that, even were she to stop now, her fate is pretty much sealed; somebody is going to pick her off, after the convention, for everything she's said already. Worse, she is absolutely not going to stop. She is instead going to accept an informal appointment as leader of the people who everyone wants to shit on, so even odds that she, not being a cleric of Iomedae, does get arrested and executed for some variety of treason. The only thing that might protect her is belonging to someone who matters enough that other people won't go after her. So, of course, now that the opportunity for that has presented itself, she's being unfathomably greedy and attempting to get the Duchess de Chelam's protection without becoming the Duchess de Chelam's legal property, which is an insane thing to even attempt, given that protection really only even makes sense as something to extend to things that in some sense belong to you. At least now she has two other people she can throw herself on the mercy of if the Duchess spits in her face.
She spends the night of the 9th attempting to find an Abadaran who does contracts, failing because the convention ran so late, and then sewing and gluing gold coins into various parts of Zara's clothing. A couple of sealed interior pockets, and an extra one glued into her shoe. Then she writes a letter, which Zara is to keep on her at all times and not use unless Korva is arrested or otherwise compromised, asking if she can spend her favor on him getting Zara passage to Absalom.
It's not that she trusts Theopho, she explains to Zara. It's just that the question of whether Theopho is trustworthy is a separate question from whether the government is trustworthy or the various nobles trying to hire her are trustworthy, and so if one of them destroys her and might be looking for Zara, then he's a possible way of getting very far away. Zara will not necessarily want to use it. She may want to try to buy passage herself, or run out into the countryside and try to avoid starvation as a laundry wizard, or try the countryside for a while and circle back to Theopho after an unpredictable number of months. Korva doesn't want to know, because then the government will know. Zara will just have to use her judgement, so she stands some chance of getting away.
She once again arrives at the convention hall very early, but this time with a specific purpose in mind. She's on the lookout for Lluisa, so she can attempt to buy the service of drawing up a contract that doesn't get her enslaved forever, as idiotic as this desire is.