Jimaine Szardos, a.k.a. Amanda Sefton, is the daughter of the sorceress Margali Szardos. She is herself a sorceress, though not as powerful as her mother. As Amanda, Jimaine is a long-time love interest of the X-Man Nightcrawler (Kurt Wagner), who was raised from infancy as her adopted brother.

In her early life, Jimaine lived nomadically as part of a Roma caravan and traveling circus in Eastern Europe along with her mother and brother Stephan Szardos. During this time period, Margali took custody of the infant mutant Kurt Wagner whose physical characteristics led many superstitious people to believe he was a demon.

Unbeknownst to either Jimaine or Margali, Stephan suffered from bouts of homicidal madness and made his foster brother Kurt swear to kill him if he ever became truly violent. Though hesitant, Kurt made the pact and when Stephan eventually did go on a rampage, he was forced to honor it. Although he wanted to explain his actions to his foster family, Margali and Jimaine had vanished. (Kurt then accepted Prof. Xavier's offer to join the new team of X-Men as Nightcrawler.)

Distraught at the turn of events, Margali began plotting to seek revenge against Kurt for his supposed betrayal. But Jimaine, who was in love with Kurt, couldn't believe he'd acted maliciously. Hoping to find out more information, she adopted the alias Amanda Sefton, a flight attendant. She and fellow stewardess Betsy Wilford met Kurt and his fellow X-Man Piotr Rasputin (a.k.a. Colossus) on Christmas Eve, just prior to the X-Men's conflict with Steven Lang's Sentinels.^[3] At that time, she appeared to everyone, including Kurt, to be an ordinary person with no previous connection to him.

Months later, Kurt and Piotr went on another double date with “Amanda” and Betsy in which they were all kidnapped by the assassin Arcade. While Kurt, Piotr and the other X-Men were made to face various deathtraps in Murderworld, the women were held prisoner but eventually released.^[6] Amanda continued to present as an ordinary person and demonstrated no magical abilities then.

Eventually, Margali attempted to exact revenge for Stephan's death by constructing a facsimile of Hell as described in Dante Alighieri's epic poem Inferno as a prison for him. The X-Men, aided by Dr. Strange, sought to rescue Kurt. During the final confrontation with Margali, Jimaine intervened on Kurt's behalf. Afterwards, she revealed to Kurt that she was Amanda.^[7]

With the truth revealed, Jimaine continued to use the name Amanda and work as a flight attendant while still dating Kurt. Although she was not often involved in X-Men adventures, she used her magic to aid them at some key junctures. Most notably, when the Hellfire Club invaded Xavier's school and took most of the team (and several associates, such as herself) hostage.^[8] Amanda quietly cast a spell to make it appear that Wolverine had died. This allowed Wolverine to move freely around the mansion and help turn the tide against their attackers.

After an incident with the Beyonder, Nightcrawler suffered a crisis of faith. He broke up with Amanda and distanced himself from her, causing her considerable anguish.^[9] Kurt was later mortally wounded during a battle with the Marauders and was left comatose for months. The rest of the X-Men went into hiding before the conflict could be resolved.

Amanda then attempted to become Doctor Strange's disciple, leading to a brief conflict between her mother Margali and the Sorcerer Supreme.^[10]

After learning that Kurt had resurfaced as a member of Excalibur in the United Kingdom, Amanda traveled to Muir Island to try and find him. She was there when the island came under attack by the Reavers and joined the temporary, ad hoc team known as the Muir Island X-Men. Amanda remained at Muir until the residents were possessed by the Shadow King. After the Muir Island Saga, she gave up superheroics.^[11]

Kurt called her out of retirement to help retrieve Captain Britain from the time stream. She almost managed the feat but had to exchange Rachel Summers for Brian.^[12] Kurt and Amanda then traveled to Germany where their mother had been captured by D'Spayre. They saved Margali and afterwards Amanda joined Excalibur.^[13]

Later, Amanda convinced Shadowcat to give Magik's Soulsword to her mother for safekeeping.^[14] But Margali instead used it to kill every magician ahead of her on the Winding Way and then joined the London branch of the Inner Circle of the Hellfire Club as the Red Queen. After defeating Margali, Amanda parted ways from Excalibur without telling anyone. The truth was that Margali had secretly taken over her body while the true Amanda was held captive by Belasco.^[15][16]

Amanda eventually freed herself and defeated her mother once again. She realized that someone needed to rule Limbo and took on the mantle herself. She changed her codename to Magik as a tribute to Illyana. Like Belasco had, she controlled the teleportinging "stepping discs" of Limbo through magic.^{[2][17][18][19][20]}

The Archenemy arose out of an attempt to catalog various magics. Amanda was tricked by S'ym into gathering the other Lords of the Splinter Realms to combine forces against it. By using their combined power, she was able to send Nightcrawler to stop the machine powering it and then destroyed the Archenemy with the Soulsword.^[21]

Upon learning that various evil powers sought to take the Soulsword, Amanda gave it to Nightcrawler for safekeeping. Jimaine was then attacked by Nightmare but saved by her mother Margali. They then aided Nightcrawler against another demon, Hive, who warned the Szardos family that a major war was brewing and that they and the Soulsword were at the center of it all.^[22]

Kurt would be killed in a battle with Bastion, but would return from the dead months later, quickly returning to Amanda in an attempt to rekindle their relationship.^[23][24] The couple would be attacked by a mysterious mechanical foe calling himself Trimega and, sensing his next target might be their mother, they travelled to Germany, reconnecting with their childhood friends Haus, Gummi, and Feuer from the circus and rescuing Margali from an attack by more Trimegas. Amanda and Kurt would elect to try and hide Margali at the X-Men's headquarters, the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning. However, this was a trap, with Margali in fact masterminding and controlling the Trimegas in an attempt to infiltrate the School. Under the cover of a large-scale Trimega attack, Margali would incapacitate X-Men Storm and Beast, extracting memories of the nature of Kurt's return from the afterlife in an attempt to claim the realm for herself. Opening a portal to the afterlife, Margali threatened reality, forcing Amanda and Kurt to incapacitate her. However, the portal remaining open, Amanda elected to sacrifice her life, venturing inside the portal and closing it from the inside after asking Kurt to find his way back to her.^[25] She seems to have remained there to this day.

Amanda is a sorceress following the path of the Winding Way, whose power waxes and wanes over time. This grants her powers such as:

• Teleportation
• Illusions
• Shapeshifting
• Mystical force bolts
• Hypnotism
• and the manipulation of other magical forces at her full disposal