diff --git a/ext/java/nokogiri/XmlXpathContext.java b/ext/java/nokogiri/XmlXpathContext.java
index 433717492fa..dc476d2eea1 100644
--- a/ext/java/nokogiri/XmlXpathContext.java
+++ b/ext/java/nokogiri/XmlXpathContext.java
@@ -106,7 +106,7 @@ public class XmlXpathContext extends RubyObject
   {
     String query = rbQuery.convertToString().asJavaString();
 
-    if (!handler.isNil() && !isContainsPrefix(query)) {
+    if (!isContainsPrefix(query)) {
       //
       //  The user has passed in a handler, but isn't using the `nokogiri:` prefix as
       //  instructed in JRuby land, so let's try to be clever and rewrite the query, inserting
@@ -131,9 +131,10 @@ public class XmlXpathContext extends RubyObject
         jchar = xpathFunctionCalls.end();
       }
 
-      if (jchar < query.length() - 1) {
+      if (jchar < query.length()) {
         namespacedQuery.append(query.subSequence(jchar, query.length()));
       }
+
       query = namespacedQuery.toString();
     }
 
diff --git a/lib/nokogiri/xml/searchable.rb b/lib/nokogiri/xml/searchable.rb
index 5f0ed24792e..639f9770f2e 100644
--- a/lib/nokogiri/xml/searchable.rb
+++ b/lib/nokogiri/xml/searchable.rb
@@ -253,7 +253,7 @@ def extract_params(params) # :nodoc:
           ![Hash, String, Symbol].include?(param.class)
         end
         params -= [handler] if handler
-        handler = XPathFunctions.new(handler) if handler
+        handler = XPathFunctions.wrap(handler)
 
         hashes = []
         while Hash === params.last || params.last.nil?
diff --git a/lib/nokogiri/xml/xpath_functions.rb b/lib/nokogiri/xml/xpath_functions.rb
index 26c44a63ad8..2ad5f2c5e67 100644
--- a/lib/nokogiri/xml/xpath_functions.rb
+++ b/lib/nokogiri/xml/xpath_functions.rb
@@ -5,6 +5,15 @@
 module Nokogiri
   module XML
     class XPathFunctions < SimpleDelegator
+      class << self
+        def wrap(handler)
+          if handler.nil?
+            @wrap_nil ||= new(Object.new)
+          else
+            new(handler)
+          end
+        end
+      end
     end
   end
 end