"It's a little late to begin disappointing me, Jesper."

"Not one to share?"

"Only under carefully controlled circumstances."

"And what are those?"

She taps her cane. "A private room, an intimate atmosphere," tap tap, "everyone lined up neatly..."

Serious nod. "I can arrange that sometime, boss."

"Perhaps after our trip, Jesper."

"When we get the money for the pleasure house?"

"Yes."

"I'm always happy to help out, of course."

"That's why I keep you around."

Broader grin. 

"I'll get this done nice and quickly then."

"Go on, then."

And he heads off.

And Kaz continues making other preparations. Need to find a ship, find some Ravkans to question, pack up the essentials...

The Ravkans are wary of strangers - but she does at least know where they live, and coin and friendliness can go a long way towards getting some stories, especially from the older women. Most of them aren't from East Ravka - crossing the Fold is for the desperate and insane, and most of those who are from the east went through Fjerda or (more commonly) Shu Han, willingly or not. 

There's got to be someone who's crossed the Fold, though. Or stories about people who have.

It takes a bit, but... She gets a few hints. An older woman who was brought across by force as a young girl, stolen by slavers and stranded in Ketterdam even after she paid off her indenture - a very old man who never answers questions about why he crossed - two deserters, soldiers who crossed the Fold soon after signing up and then ran rather than cross back - and connected to them by some rumors, a woman who's about thirty, rumor has it a thief who seems to think she pissed off the Darkling personally, who's been trying to save up for a ship all the way out of the True Sea, past the Kadvar Straits and to the wide world outside. It sounds like the soldiers deserted a few years ago, but the woman is a more recent arrival; still, they seem set to leave together. The older woman - the ex-slave - reportedly wishes to return to Ravka, at the very least to the Western coasts, but can't afford passage, and the old man is supposedly a recluse.

Are there any kind of commonalties to their experiences crossing?

Well, the ex-slave doesn't really know a lot of what happened - she was bound and gagged under a tarp on a tiny sandskiff, and she doesn't remember much of the experience. The old man refuses to answer questions.

The two soldiers came across on a skiff - larger, one of Ravka's - that was attacked when they were nearly out of the Fold. The soldiers can be prodded to give the Official Information on crossing - no lights, no speaking, no making noise - no unnecessary movement, those permitted to walk about wear soft shoes and step lightly - the fewer people on the skiff, the less likely you are to get attacked, but most have a minimum number they need to operate, and of course the army doesn't travel light.

The thief is very squirrely about how she got across, and there's a hunted look in her eyes. 

(Kaz is usually pretty good at figuring out how to get even the most uncooperative to talk to her.)

It takes a while - and some alcohol, and some seemingly careless display of exactly how uninvolved Kaz is with the 'right side' of the law - and a brightly lit room with few shadows -

The woman's a horse thief. A good horse thief, one of the best if she says so herself, and she's from West Ravka - and she'd heard that the horses bred and trained by the Darkling fetch an emperor's ransom - 

The story comes out of her in fits and jolts.

She obviously didn't steal a trained war horse. But one young enough to be ridden technically, even if not yet broken to the saddle all the way - one not yet trained - they're hard to steal, damn hard, but doable for someone like her, though she only escaped with the one horse. 

And it's not exactly well known, but if you're in the business of smuggling horses - it's humans what set off the volcra. Human voices, human footsteps. Can't tell a human just by their breath she guesses, but if you keep quiet and your feet never touch the ground, if you never take a step yourself - the volcra ignore you. 

Normal animals are too damn terrified of the fold, and some smugglers manage to break horses or donkeys or what-have-you to it, but that's risky, you'll end up with a terrified animal not useful for much else which might bolt out from under you at any moment. Smugglers like that don't have much better chances than an army sandskiff, but better than most people trying to cross solo, so some think it's worth it. 

The horse she stole acted like it might as well have been out for a mid-afternoon stroll when she rode it into the fold. It didn't much like her, but it didn't successfully throw her so - 

Anyways, she sold the damn thing and ran, and she didn't get a fraction what it's worth but she swears there's been something nipping at her heels, chasing her in the shadows ever since. She needed to escape, fast.

(...Interesting. A way across that doesn't run so much risk, maybe, and if they can track that horse down- it could be their in.)

Kaz pushes a little on getting the details of the horse, the identity of the buyer. Hints that she might have the connections to get the thief further away...

That gets a bit more out of her - the buyer was in West Ravka, and she wouldn't be surprised if he's fool enough to still be there. A wealthy man, of course, not even directly associated with a military...

That's very helpful.