Genie Lamps

Genie Lamps are magical items featured on ABC's Once Upon a Time and Once Upon a Time in Wonderland. They first appear in the fifth episode of the first season of Once Upon a Time.

History
In the Enchanted Forest, a lamp, is found by chance on a beach by King Leopold, who accidentally summons out a genie residing inside. The Genie of Agrabah explains that, by releasing him from the lamp, King Leopold can be granted three wishes. The king is moved by the Genie's desire to be free, so he uses a wish to release him from the lamp's servitude. For the second wish, King Leopold uses it to give the third wish to the Genie himself. Afterwards, he takes in his new-found friend as a guest in the palace. The Genie quickly falls in love with King Leopold's wife, Regina, and notices she is neglected by her husband. One night, he gives Regina a hand mirror and dubs her the fairest woman in his eyes. Later, King Leopold discovers, in a written diary, that Regina has affection for an unnamed man who gifted her a hand mirror. Soon, Regina is locked up for the affair while he king requests the Genie to find the nameless man. The Genie discovers Regina intends to commit suicide by letting vipers poison her. Instead, he successfully murders the king with the vipers only to find out Regina has only been using him to get rid of her husband. Unable to accept it, he wishes to always be near her. The wish backfires and entraps him in the hand mirror.
 * -|Before the Curse=

In Agrabah, a human named Cyrus incurs the wraith of some men after cheating in a card game and they get payback by setting his house on fire. Consequently, Cyrus' mother, Amara, is badly burned due to being present in the house. Willing to do anything to save her life, he and his brothers, Taj and Rafi, fetch water from the Well of Wonders. The well's guardian, Nyx, can sense that their mother is meant to die, so the water cannot be used to heal her. Even so, Cyrus goes against her ruling and convinces his brothers to do the same as well. Amara is healed, but urges her sons to flee from Agrabah after learning who they stole the water from. Nyx arrives to give the three brothers their punishment for disobeying her by cursing them to be genies forever enslaved to grant the wishes of others.

Later on, Amara becomes a powerful sorceress and takes on an apprentice, Jafar, and they work together to track down two out of three genie bottles that are needed to break the laws of magic and possess whatever their hearts' desire. Though the spell needs two sorcerers, Jafar betrays Amara by turning her into a serpent staff so he can have access to her powers whenever necessary. The third bottle falls into the hands of a scarf vender, Farzeen, who grows wealthy from being granted two wishes via the genie Cyrus. However, Farzeen is warned by Cyrus to beware of a man carrying a serpent staff who is hunting after the lamp. When Jafar finally locates the third lamp, Farzeen, in a panic, uses the last wish to send Cyrus to a faraway land.

Cyrus winds up in the world of Wonderland and his bottle is later opened by a girl named Alice. He promises her three wishes as long as they do not violate the laws of magic, which does not allow resurrecting anyone, changing the past, causing the death of another person, or making someone fall in love. Instead of making wishes, Alice falls in love with Cyrus as he does with her. The two decide to be together forever and bury the bottle in a pasture, which the White Rabbit secretly witnesses.

Jafar and the ruler of Wonderland, the Red Queen, team up together with intentions of separating Alice from Cyrus so they can change the laws of magic. After they fake Cyrus' death, Alice, believing he is gone, returns to her world alone. Alice arrives back to Wonderland with the Knave of Hearts when given news by the White Rabbit that her beloved Cyrus is still alive. Under duress, the White Rabbit procures the genie bottle for the Red Queen, who keeps the item for herself without Jafar's knowledge. Alice purposely names a fake burial site of the bottle—Mimsy Meadows—which the Red Queen deliberately tells Jafar to send him on wild goose chase. Later, the Red Queen admits to Jafar that she possesses the bottle in order to force him to start treating her as an equal partner rather than a lowly servant. Alice and Knave arrive at the true burial site of the bottle too late, though they discover with the help of a magical knot that the White Rabbit dug it up for the Red Queen.
 * -|After Broken Curse=

In order for the bottle to have a new owner, Jafar and the Red Queen attempt to sway Alice into using up her three wishes. In desperation to save Knave's life, Alice uses the first wish to ask for her own death if he were to die. Similarly, the second wish is used to rescue a loved one, her father, from death.

One of the Red Queen's servants, Tweedledee, begins secretly working for Jafar and even steals the bottle out of the castle to give to him. Unaware the bottle is fake hidden in place by the Red Queen, Jafar gains what he believes is the real deal. Tweedledee's brother, Tweedledum, witnesses the item exchange and notifies the Red Queen, who punishes her double-crossing servant by taking off his head. She retrieves the real bottle, which is hidden in an old wagon, and wrings out Alice's current location with Cyrus' compliance. Once Jafar realizes the bottle he has is a fake, he creates a storm cloud to hunt her down. Meanwhile, Alice reunites with Cyrus, but is displeased to see the Red Queen, who claims that they all must leave Wonderland before Jafar's storm cloud arrives. In a moment of truth, the Red Queen confesses her reason for wanting to change the laws of magic is to regain Knave's love. As the storm cloud approaches, she uses the bottle as a shield against a bolt of thunder, which bounces off to fatally wound Knave. The first wish comes true as both he and Alice begin perishing, so Knave uses the third wish to end her suffering. Since Alice's pain entailed two specific things, she is restored to health and Cyrus is also freed from the bottle, but Knave takes his place as genie.

After picking the bottle up, Lizard, a friend of Knave's, becomes the next person promised three wishes. Upon learning it is impossible to make for someone fall in love, she gives a wish to Knave. Lizard uses the second wish to make herself a beautiful and elegant woman, desperate to impress the man she loves, and admits that person is Knave. Even though he doesn't feel the same way, she longs for him to at least feel something for her. By accident, Lizard uses this as the third wish and ultimately causes her own death while Knave is forced into his bottle. Later on, the Red Queen retrieves the bottle and purposely rubs it to summon Knave out so he can recognize her as his next master. In a twist of fate, Cyrus learns that his two brothers are trapped within the other bottles in Jafar's possession and fully intends to rescue them.

Knave and the Red Queen split up from Alice and Knave in order to find a way to take back Wonderland from Jafar's grasp. However, the plan takes a backseat once they are ambushed by Jafar's new ally, the Jabberwocky, who captures them both. In order for Jafar to truly possess the third bottle, he has the Jabberwocky coerce the Red Queen into making the three wishes. Following this, Knave has no choice but to return into the bottle. Then, Jafar places the three bottles together and begins casting a spell to change the laws of magic.

Trivia

 * At the start of the episode "Fruit of the Poisonous Tree", the genie lamp features three green gems on its spout. By the end of the episode, the gems are red. A possible explanation is that per used wish, a gem turns red.
 * The Magic Mirror lamp is now one of several Enchanted Forest artifacts in Mr. Gold's pawnshop.