diff --git a/CHANGES.md b/CHANGES.md
index eb86d86b..ba7010df 100644
--- a/CHANGES.md
+++ b/CHANGES.md
@@ -2,6 +2,8 @@
 
 ### Unreleased
 
+* Fix a regression in parsing of unicode surogate pairs (`\uXX\uXX`) that could cause an invalid string to be returned.
+
 ### 2025-12-03 (2.17.0)
 
 * Improve `JSON.load` and `JSON.unsafe_load` to allow passing options as second argument.
diff --git a/ext/json/ext/parser/parser.c b/ext/json/ext/parser/parser.c
index 5b7cd835..c84c7ed6 100644
--- a/ext/json/ext/parser/parser.c
+++ b/ext/json/ext/parser/parser.c
@@ -651,7 +651,9 @@ static inline const char *json_next_backslash(const char *pe, const char *string
         positions->size--;
         const char *next_position = positions->positions[0];
         positions->positions++;
-        return next_position;
+        if (next_position >= pe) {
+            return next_position;
+        }
     }
 
     if (positions->has_more) {
diff --git a/test/json/json_parser_test.rb b/test/json/json_parser_test.rb
index 3e662bda..257e4f17 100644
--- a/test/json/json_parser_test.rb
+++ b/test/json/json_parser_test.rb
@@ -325,6 +325,13 @@ def test_invalid_unicode_escape
     assert_raise(JSON::ParserError) { parse('"\u111___"') }
   end
 
+  def test_unicode_followed_by_newline
+    # Ref: https://github.com/ruby/json/issues/912
+    assert_equal "🌌\n".bytes, JSON.parse('"\ud83c\udf0c\n"').bytes
+    assert_equal "🌌\n", JSON.parse('"\ud83c\udf0c\n"')
+    assert_predicate JSON.parse('"\ud83c\udf0c\n"'), :valid_encoding?
+  end
+
   def test_invalid_surogates
     assert_raise(JSON::ParserError) { parse('"\\uD800"') }
     assert_raise(JSON::ParserError) { parse('"\\uD800_________________"') }