Pageantry, pomp, pretense, and peril--The General's Turn, originally published in The Deadlands, drew readers into the dark world of a ceremony where Death herself might choose to join the audience... or step onto the stage. Award-winning author Premee Mohamed presents three brand new stories set in this morally ambiguous world of war and magic. In One Message Remains, Major Lyell Tzajos leads his team on a charity mission through the post-armistice world of East Seudast, exhuming the bones and souls of dead foes for repatriation. But the buried fighters may have one more fight left in them--and they have chosen their weapons well.

In The Weight of What is Hollow, Taya is the latest apprentice of a long-honored tradition: building the bone-gallows for prisoners of war. But her very first commission will pit her skills against both her family and her oppressor.

Finally, in Forsaking All Others, ex-soldier Rostyn must travel the little-known ways by night to avoid his pursuers, for desertion is punishable by death. As he flees to the hoped-for sanctuary of his grandmother's village, he is joined by a fellow deserter--and, it seems, the truth of a myth older than the land itself.

St. Edah's, a house without exit: Lethe and Petunia are mortal prisoners, servants to immortal creatures who unzip from their skin each night and party as skeletons.

Lethe has no memory of how she came to be trapped in this nightmare, only that despite the tenderness she feels for Petunia, she must escape. Together, they traverse the infinite house, searching for passage while finding evidence of their former lives--lives that are not what they believed them to be.

Lethe must decide: join the immortals in their revelry or escape St. Edah's once and for all.

Doomsday Dot will wake the day the world ends.

That's what everyone says, yours truly included.

Bryony's been searching for her big sister for ten years and change, and the trail finally leads her to Mr. Once-Upon-a-Time's traveling show. There's a wolf who'll serve you tea, a lady who's sometimes a swan, and Bryony's sister sound asleep in a glass casket. All of them, rolling through the wasteland in a giant wooden Whale.

The Whale's important, you'll see.

But Bryony's not the only one on the hunt. Everyone on the Whale is running from something. And whether Bryony can wake her sister before they're caught, well, only the Devil herself knows.

The Devil's important as well. You'll see that, too.

But is the house truly haunted?

Of course the house is haunted.

Button House has stood for centuries, digging its roots and its rot deeper and deeper, consuming all who approach: twin brothers, a child bride, an innocent baby, four young factory workers.
And then came Rose Billings, who had an affinity with the house like no other. Rose, who could hear the house and the pleas of its many ghosts. Rose, who would attempt to solve the mysteries of Button House, or die trying.

Death is an integral part of life, waiting on the other side for each of us.

Writers, however, have no need to wait. They can cross the boundary as easily as stepping from one room to another.

These eighteen stories from 2023 will take you into that room and beyond. From death's chamber to the hood of a Camaro, from quiet woods to shrieking space. Death awaits. Let us go and meet it.

Includes stories by Isabel J. Kim, Tehnuka, Michael Roch, Eugenia Triantafyllou, Will McMahon, Bendi Barrett, Diana Dima, Eden Royce, B. Pladek, Avra Margariti, EC Dorgan, Gabrielle Emem Harry, Samir Sirk Morató, M. L. Krishnan, Jill Tew, Osahon Ize-Iyamu, Sydney Paige Guerrero, and J.A.W. McCarthy

What can you do when you fall in love with death? Rachel is at a protest. You are what you eat, but what are you eating? Rachel is at a protest. How do animals mourn? Rachel is at a protest. How will you mark your own passing? Rachel is at a protest. Can words die-can words be reborn? Rachel is at a protest. What if your heaven is a bike shed? Rachel is at a protest. What of the handsome ones-what of your father? Rachel has always been at a protest.

Includes writing from Chris Panatier, Corey Farrenkopf, Abhinav, Kay Mabasa, Eleora Ryan, Stephen Kearse, Ali Trotta, Esther Alter, Lauren Ring, Richard Leis, and Isabel Cañas.