diff --git a/src/shared/ask-password-api.c b/src/shared/ask-password-api.c
index bc5e1cf6692..a3d61d5b9ab 100644
--- a/src/shared/ask-password-api.c
+++ b/src/shared/ask-password-api.c
@@ -442,8 +442,11 @@ int ask_password_tty(
                                 /* Check if we got a complete UTF-8 character now. If so, let's output one '*'. */
                                 n = utf8_encoded_valid_unichar(passphrase + codepoint, (size_t) -1);
                                 if (n >= 0) {
+                                        if (flags & ASK_PASSWORD_ECHO)
+                                                (void) loop_write(ttyfd, passphrase + codepoint, n, false);
+                                        else
+                                                (void) loop_write(ttyfd, "*", 1, false);
                                         codepoint = p;
-                                        (void) loop_write(ttyfd, (flags & ASK_PASSWORD_ECHO) ? &c : "*", 1, false);
                                 }
                         }